Chapter 1 — Loving God
A doctor who prescribes the same medicine for every ailment is a poor doctor, and the same lesson applies to the spiritual life. Sometime in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the “quiet time” became a staple of most discipleship and church training programs. Usually consisting of thirty to sixty minutes, it was most commonly composed of a short period of personal worship, followed by intercessory prayer with a notebook or list, then Bible study according to a set method, a concluding prayer, and a commitment to share what had been learned with at least one other person that day. This practice was helpful — genuinely so — and yet it became, for many, the only prescription on offer. You want to grow as a Christian? Develop a quiet time and come to church every weekend. That was the answer, for virtually everything.
The result is a particular kind of sadness. It is one thing to witness spiritually empty people outside the church, but it is even sadder to see Christians inside the church who suffer the same spiritual emptiness. Some have labored on for years but admit that the routine of their devotions has made them feel more like obligation than delight. The problem is not that helpful routines are bad, but that even delightful routines can grow stale. There are certain foods that are genuinely enjoyed — but not every day. There are running routes and workouts earnestly looked forward to — but not the same route, at the same speed, the same length, every single time. Breaking a wrist once thrust a marriage out of its routine in a way that renewed it: near-daily walks, shopping together, answering emails side by side, the simple closeness that had been buried under the accretions of always doing the same thing. The romance was always there; routine had simply covered it over. The discipline of quiet times is helpful, but it is not always sufficient. Other parts of the spiritual life can lie dormant for years while one practice is maintained faithfully.
The deeper question is this: why should everybody be expected to love God the same way? God wants to know the real you, not a caricature of what somebody else wants you to be. He created you with a certain personality and a certain spiritual temperament, and he wants your worship according to the way he made you. In worshiping God according to how he made us, we are actually affirming his work as Creator. This does not mean solitary spirituality cut off from the body of Christ — individual expressions of faith must be joined to corporate worship. But within that community, there is enormous freedom. Jesus accepted the worship of Peter’s mother-in-law as she served him, but he refused to force Mary, the sister of Martha, to worship in that same way. Mary was allowed to express her devotion in the silence of adoration, not in the hustle and bustle of active service. Both were accepted. Both were right.
Scripture shows this pattern across every era. The same God is present from Genesis through Revelation, yet people worshiped that one God in many ways. Abraham had a religious bent, building altars everywhere he went. Moses and Elijah revealed an activist’s streak in their confrontations with forces of evil and in their conversations with God. David celebrated God with an enthusiastic style of worship, while his son Solomon expressed his love by offering generous sacrifices. Ezekiel and John described loud and colorful images of God, stunning in sensuous brilliance. Mordecai demonstrated his love for God by caring for others, beginning with the orphaned Esther. Mary of Bethany is the classic contemplative, sitting at Jesus’ feet. None of these figures is held up as the only model; all are shown as genuine expressions of a life oriented toward God.
Church history adds its own testimony. In the Middle Ages, Roman Catholic worship focused on the altar and was steeped in the mystery of sacramental rites. When Luther theologically broke with Rome, he elevated the pulpit to show the importance of preaching the Word — sola scriptura as the animating principle. Calvinists rejected the monastic separation from society and opted instead to express love for God by transforming society. The Anabaptists stressed the inner reality of the gospel, creating communities of faith that worshiped by sitting quietly before God, waiting for the Spirit to speak through his people — neither pulpit nor altar starred, but congregational sharing and listening. Further east, the Orthodox Church maintained its centuries-old tradition of a sensuous worship service, with worshipers touching and kissing various sacred items, listening to bells, smelling incense, watching priests wear elaborate clothing, all surrounded by color and mystery. All five expressions — Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist, Anabaptist, and Orthodox — were attempts to love God sincerely, even when some of the differences had theological roots and others were rooted in worship preference.
What is a sacred pathway? Put simply, it describes the way we relate to God — how we draw near to him. Most of us will naturally have a certain predisposition, a predominant spiritual temperament, though mature Christians often grow to express many of them. Nine pathways can be traced through Scripture and church history. Naturalists prefer to leave any building, however beautiful, to pray beside a river or walk through the woods, believing that nature clearly proclaims that God is. Sensates want to be lost in the awe, beauty, and splendor of God through sights, sounds, and smells that overwhelm them — incense, intricate architecture, classical music, and formal language send their hearts soaring. Traditionalists are fed by the historic dimensions of faith: rituals, symbols, sacraments, and sacrifice, and often display a highly disciplined life of faith. Ascetics want nothing more than to be left alone in prayer, with nothing to distract them, in silence and simplicity. Activists define worship as standing against evil and calling sinners to repentance, energized more by confrontation than by solitude. Caregivers serve God by serving others and often claim to see Christ in the poor and needy, their faith built up by caring for people. Enthusiasts are inspired by joyful celebration and mystery; if their hearts are not moved, something feels missing. Contemplatives refer to God as their lover, seeking to love him with the purest and deepest love imaginable, drawn to images of a loving Father and Bridegroom. And intellectuals need their minds to be stirred before their hearts come truly alive, feeling closest to God when they first understand something new about him.
The focus on spiritual temperaments is an attempt to understand how we best relate to God so that we can develop new ways of drawing near to him. By understanding the myriad ways that Christians have cultivated this relationship, we will have more ideas than we need to walk closer and more constantly by God’s side.
Chapter 2 — Where Is Your Gethsemane?
Mature Christians often display many, if not all, of the spiritual temperaments. Jesus himself is cited as an example of each one — he was contemplative and activist, caregiver and intellectual, sensate and traditionalist. The goal of understanding our spiritual temperament is not self-actualization or spiritual self-absorption. It is nourishment — feeding our souls so we can know God in a new way, love him with every part of our being, and then express that love by reaching out to others. The categories are tools for deepening relationship, not labels for defining it.
Jesus had used the garden of Gethsemane on numerous occasions to meet with his Father, to gain spiritual strength, and to receive his marching orders. Long before Passion Week, the garden was a sacred space of refuge, refreshment, healing, intimacy, and fellowship — that is precisely why Jesus went there to prepare for what was about to take place. The experience of Gethsemane is unique to Jesus; none of us will ever face a moment like that. But in using that sacred space repeatedly, Jesus leaves an example to follow. When you need to hear from God, when you need to be strengthened, when you need your marching orders, where do you go? For some it may indeed be a garden or a local forest. Others find prayer solace in a sanctuary or with a musical instrument in hand. The point is not the location but the question: do you have a place, or a moment, where you best meet with God in those times when you most need him? Where is your Gethsemane?
In a healthy Christian life, prayer and ministry go hand in hand. As intimacy with God grows in prayer, he communicates his love and gives direction. In this way prayer feeds mission and renews the urgency behind it. Likewise, Christian work — whether evangelism, administration, teaching, or discipleship — reminds us of our need for God’s strength and drives us further into prayer. The two are meant to reinforce each other in an ongoing rhythm. God intends great freedom in how we meet with and enjoy him, and that freedom is by his design and according to his good pleasure. Consider this: if two daughters have different personalities and different ways of spending time with their father, a good father rejoices in both. He would be hurt to learn that one felt she had to do the same things as the other. Each is its own unique relationship, and each is a cause for joy. Why would we think God is any different?
If you are in a spiritual malaise, you may need a change in your spiritual diet more than a renewal of effort in the same old direction. If you seem unable to leave a particular sin, the answer may be simpler than expected: you may not know how to be nourished according to the way God made you, and so you seek spiritual junk food — in the form of sin or addiction — somewhere else. Finding genuine fulfillment in God is the most powerful antidote to any sin. According to Jesus, four elements are essential to every true expression of faith: loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. The intellectual is not excused from failing to adore. The contemplative is not excused from harboring wrong beliefs. Every temperament is called to the fullness of love, and the sacred pathways are the means by which that fullness becomes practically possible — season after season, year after year, across an entire life of devotion.
Chapter 3 — Naturalists
Where we worship can have a profound impact on the quality of our worship. The naturalist seeks to leave the formal architecture and the padded pews to enter an entirely new sanctuary — a place that God himself has built. Any place that has some trees or a stream or, at minimum, open skies can be that cathedral. It should be obvious, though modern conveniences hid the truth for a long time, that the Bible is meant to be read outdoors. Many of its illustrations and allusions are based on nature, and it is only in the context of creation that they regain their full meaning and force. When we lock ourselves inside, we leave part of God’s creation — and therefore part of our understanding — outside. Artificial comfort comes to us at a cost.
The outdoor setting is not peripheral to biblical faith but woven through it. Many of the Old Testament theophanies, the appearances of God, happened in the wilderness. God met Hagar in the desert, Abraham on a mountain, Jacob at a river crossing, and Moses at a burning bush. Jesus himself seems to have sought out the beauty of creation from the beginning of his ministry. He moved from Nazareth to live in Capernaum, which was by the lake. When he called some of his disciples, he was walking by the Sea of Galilee. He often taught in the countryside. When God created a paradise for the first man and woman, he did not choose a resort house or an elaborate palace — he chose to walk with Adam and Eve in a garden with plentiful trees and a river with four river heads. Unfortunately, baptism has been moved from the river to the blue tub behind the pulpit. The Sermon on the Mount is now read from carpeted stairs rather than a hillside covered with green grass. Worship has moved from Mount Sinai, with all its sights, sounds, and smells, to theater seating designed to protect us from outside distractions.
The effect of creation on those who encounter it can be startling. In 1998, seventy-seven-year-old John Glenn returned to space and was almost immediately overwhelmed with the presence of God. “To look out at this kind of creation,” he stated in a news conference from space, “and not believe in God is to me impossible.” Glenn was not alone. Bryan O’Connor, a retired astronaut, said that an enhanced faith “is pretty common” for astronauts: “I can tell you I felt a sense of awe out there looking at the Earth that I never had before.” This should not surprise us. “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands,” declares the psalmist (Psalm 19:1). Paul writes that “since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made” (Romans 1:20). The hymn “How Great Thou Art” captures the naturalist’s experience in verse: when wandering through the woods and forest glades and hearing the birds sing sweetly in the trees, when looking down from lofty mountain grandeur and hearing the brook and feeling the gentle breeze — then the soul sings.
Nature also offers rest. In Psalm 23, David credits God with restoring his soul, but the pastoral setting clearly plays a role. The outdoors cannot replace fellowship with God, but it can be used by God in powerful ways. In the midst of a busy schedule of ministry, Jesus often sought lonely places to pray and be replenished, and he taught his disciples to do the same. The practice of loving God outdoors requires first creating a space of time, quiet, and isolation — only in that quiet can the eye truly begin to see. Then the naturalist learns to examine the beauty of creation with care: the shapes of rocks, the variety of colors and shades, the beauty of individual elements such as a single tree, and the beauty of overall composition such as a whole forest. God’s beauty cannot be revealed through one form; it is so vast and infinite that it fills an entire world with wonder.
Two temptations attend this pathway. The first is spiritual delusion: anything received on a walk with God should not be considered authoritative in itself but should be tested against Scripture, which is the only sure guide. The second is idolizing nature — the heresy of pantheism, which slides from worshiping the God revealed in nature to worshiping nature itself. Pantheism is a lie. It is not true that God is in all of nature or that nature is God. The distinction is the same as the one between a mother who walks into her daughter’s room after that daughter has left for college. She breathes in the familiar scent, lets her eyes linger on the posters and the bed and the clothes left behind. Her daughter is not in the room, but the room reminds her that her daughter is. No doubt she feels closer to her daughter there than anywhere else in the house. A part of her daughter has been left behind — not materially but evidentially. Nature is like that room: the Creator has been there, his character is everywhere evident, and the creation testifies unmistakably that God is — but the creation is not God.
Chapter 4 — Sensates
Some Christians are moved toward God more by sensuous worship experiences than by anything else. By sensuous, the reference is to the five senses — taste, touch, smell, sound, and sight. When all Christian worship is reduced to mere intellectual assent, believers are forced to encounter God in a stunted and muted existence. When the senses are embraced — which God created, after all — entirely new avenues of worship open up. This may be a difficult message for Christians who grew up equating silence and lack of sensory stimulation with reverence. But when Scripture is examined, God often appears in very loud and colorful ways.
Consider the experience recounted by Ezekiel. He feels a wind. He sees flashing lightning surrounded by brilliant light, fantastic creatures, and a magnificent throne of sapphire. He hears the sound of wings like the roar of rushing waters, and a loud rumbling. He is then asked to eat a scroll that tastes sweet. After it is all over, Ezekiel is so overwhelmed — perhaps the sensuous onslaught is so great — that he sits down, stunned, for seven days. When the glory of the Lord returns to the temple, God’s voice is again like the roar of rushing waters, and the land becomes radiant with his glory. The sight is so great that Ezekiel falls facedown. When Jesus appears to John in the book of Revelation, the experience is equally sensuous. Jesus proclaims his name in a loud voice like a trumpet. His head and hair are white like wool, his eyes like blazing fire, his voice like the sound of rushing waters, and his face like the sun shining in all its brilliance. Such brilliance forces the observer to turn away, and John falls at Jesus’ feet as though dead. Truth and thought are essential components of real Christianity. But feeling is also important, for we are told to love God not only with all our mind but with our heart as well. Enjoyment through the senses was God’s idea, not an intrusion.
Sound was the first sense God made central to worship. Psalm 96 begins: “Sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all the earth.” Psalms 147, 149, and 150 urge believers to worship God through making music with instruments. As Creator, God knows that language and music together stimulate the brain more than language alone. Luther argued that Scripture was meant to be heard with the ears more than read with the eyes, believing that hearts are most transformed when we hear the Word of God — a claim science has since supported, showing that hearing Scripture activates the mind more than silent reading.
Smell can cement memories and is given a surprisingly prominent place in Scripture. God commanded Moses to collect offerings of spices to create sweet incense, and Aaron was told to burn incense every morning. Detailed instructions for cultivating sweet smells are given in Exodus 30. God prophesies through Malachi that “in every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to my name.” Incense was among the offerings presented to the Christ child and was burning in the temple when the angel appeared to Zechariah. Incense continues to be offered to God in heaven, along with the prayers of the saints, in the book of Revelation, and Psalm 141:2 uses it as a symbol for prayers rising to God. The abuse of incense in idol worship is rejected in Scripture — but its use is not. Properly understood, incense serves not to court favor with God but to help the Christian pray. It is a means, not an end.
Touch communicates, especially to the sensate Christian. One Lenten season, a nail carried in a pocket served as a recurring physical reminder — its sharp edge pressing against the leg throughout the day, calling to mind Jesus’ sufferings with every movement. Orthodox worship involves frequent kissing of a cross, an altar, or a holy instrument: touch with the lips as a way to recognize something as precious, making both a powerful internal and external statement. A young college student once offered himself to God by touching various parts of his body in prayer — fingers and feet consecrated for service, lips for truth, eyes for purity — moving through each gesture before God, only to discover later that the motions resembled the blood consecration in Leviticus 8:24, where Moses placed blood on the lobes of ears, thumbs of hands, and big toes of feet. The body has always been an instrument of devotion.
Sight affects us perhaps more than any other sense. As much as a third of our cerebral cortex is devoted to visual processing, and researchers have found that sight can be used to affect the will — which has a direct bearing on commitment to live out the faith. When Henri Nouwen’s soul was captivated by Rembrandt’s painting of the prodigal son, the truth of that parable pierced his heart with an entirely new passion, though there were probably very few theological points he hadn’t studied several times over and certainly hadn’t read the parable countless times before. When God inaugurated Israel’s form of worship, he especially gifted and called out two individuals, Bezalel and Oholiab, to do all kinds of crafts — creating beautiful art forms out of gold, silver, bronze, and wood, developing skill in embroidering fine linen and making intricate weavings. To God, beauty mattered. The expense involved in the making of the temple was an acceptable sacrifice, and those who used their gifts to build it were said to be filled with the Spirit of God.
Taste, finally, is so powerful that language borrows from it freely. A cultured person has good taste; a cruel person is bitter; someone kind is sweet. Jesus describes himself as the bread of life and calls his followers the salt of the earth. As these passages are studied and remembered in everyday life, the otherwise routine act of eating becomes an occasion for spiritual awakening. Three temptations attend the sensate pathway. The first is worshiping without conviction — senses can deceive, especially when emotions are sent soaring through music, and conviction of the will must not be confused with emotional lift. The second is idolizing beauty — things of great beauty can steal the heart from the only One worthy of true worship. The third is worshiping worship itself — pursuing sensory stimulation as an end rather than as an aid. The senses are God’s most effective inroad to some hearts; they were made to be instruments of devotion, not replacements for obedience.
Chapter 5 — Traditionalists
For all our suspicion of religious practices, we must remember that God invented and at times commanded much of them. Abram expressed his faith by building altars wherever God appeared to him — at Shechem, between Bethel and Ai, at Hebron — seeking to bring form to his faith in every new place. When God formalized Israel’s religion, he rejected idol worship and commanded that Moses make an altar for offerings, and Aaron and his sons were given elaborate religious rituals to follow that would distinguish between the holy and the common so that reverence for God would not be lost. When Nadab and Abihu, two of Aaron’s sons, offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, God took their lives. God understands that our reaction to symbols often reveals our hearts’ reaction to him: if we are flippant toward symbols, we are often flippant toward what the symbols represent.
The traditionalist is fed by what are often called the historic dimensions of faith — rituals, symbols, sacraments, and sacrifice. Ezra was such a figure: he studied the law and taught its decrees, proclaimed fasts, offered sacrifices, mourned over sin, made confessions, and publicly read the law. Jesus himself made it his custom to go to the synagogue on the Sabbath, and if Jesus saw the need for regular formal worship, how much more should his followers. Peter and John both observed regular, set times of prayer. Paul, the champion of salvation by grace through faith, nevertheless observed the religious custom in Philippi of praying by the riverside on the Sabbath. Symbols and rituals are ways of using the physical world to express nonphysical, spiritual truths. Rod Dreher, drawn to the ritual of the Orthodox Church, was moved by the fact that he was praying prayers that had been prayed by many Christians in earlier centuries. The structure of the services brought more discipline to his personal life. Experiencing the same ritual week after week had deepened his understanding of the faith and his commitment to it.
Ritual creates sacred order in otherwise chaotic time. In endless space, a fixed point of orientation is established — a sacred space. What is too vast and shapeless is dealt with in smaller, manageable pieces, not only for practicality but for high purpose: to relate safely to the mysterious, to communicate with the transcendent. Reading Scripture aloud, praying the Psalms regularly, beginning the day with the Bible, choosing a hymn or worship song as a daily anchor, setting fixed prayer windows at morning, midday, and evening — these practices provide structure for the faith. The Christian calendar can function as a year-long teacher: Advent reminds us that there is a time to wait; Lent, a time to repent and mourn; Easter, a time to celebrate; Pentecost, a time to be empowered and emboldened to go out and minister. Contemporary markers can be added too — the ecstatic experience of Blaise Pascal on November 23, 1664, or the imprisonment and eventual martyrdom of Dietrich Bonhoeffer on April 9, 1945 — any events that carry particular meaning because a historic figure has influenced one’s faith. Pastor Robert Morgan compiled these into a devotional book, On This Day, making it easy to anchor daily devotion in the wider story of the church. The evangelical movement has suffered somewhat from making prayers too informal; new Christians often need more guidance than the popular instruction to “just talk to God and tell him what’s on your heart” in order to learn how to pray with adoration, thanksgiving, and confession melded together with intercession.
Symbols help overcome one of the great difficulties of the Christian life: the problem of a poor memory. How many times has a moving sermon or a powerful verse made an impression, only to lose its effect because it was forgotten so soon? God endorsed the use of symbols explicitly when he spoke to Moses, commanding tassels on the corners of garments with a blue cord, so that Israel would look at them and remember all his commands, that they might obey and not chase after the lusts of their hearts and eyes. Some Christian traditions keep baptism cloths — called the alb — as a memorial of baptism and use them as a covering for the body after death, unusually beautiful symbolism that proclaims the hope of baptism even in burial. Christ is frequently symbolized by the chi-rho symbol, the first two Greek letters of Christ. The Holy Spirit is symbolized as a dove, recalling the Spirit’s settling on Jesus at his baptism, or as fire, recalling the day of Pentecost. Symbols become dangerous only when they become the center rather than a reminder of faith, as happened when Israel began to worship the bronze serpent that Moses had built — something good perverted through misuse, not through use itself.
Sacrifice is also at the heart of this pathway. Lent is its clearest modern expression, though sadly we have become a culture that celebrates Mardi Gras but rarely gets around to Lent. God does not need us to give up anything — certainly not chocolate or roast beef — but sometimes we need to deny ourselves something in order to truly appreciate what really matters. Fasting does not earn extra merit or favors with God, but it can chasten demanding hearts and create space for deeper dependence, gratitude, and obedience. To love God as a traditionalist, all three dimensions of this temperament are brought together: plentiful use of symbols, meaningful rituals, and humble practices of sacrifice.
The temptations are real. Young Samuel ministered before the Lord under Eli and yet did not yet know the Lord personally — intimately involved in the religious observances of Israel, but not knowing the God of Israel. Jesus warned against empty displays of religion, calling it hypocrisy that makes a person a whitewashed tomb — beautiful on the outside, full of dead bones within. Rituals can powerfully enhance an individual’s faith, but they can also destroy corporate faith if used to criticize, measure, or divide others. And people have a tendency to virtually deify something simply because it’s the way it has always been done, even when they no longer understand why it is done at all. The tradition must remain a signpost pointing beyond itself to God; the moment it becomes an end in itself, the pathway has become a detour.
Chapter 6 — Ascetics
John the Baptist immediately comes to mind when we think of the solitary and the ascetic, but Jesus also had these tendencies. Before launching himself into his public ministry, Jesus spent forty days in solitude and fasting. He taught that prayer should be done in secret. He assumed his disciples would eventually fast. And he returned to solitude at difficult moments in his ministry. Daniel writes of fervent prayer in which he pleads with God, fasts, and sits in sackcloth and ashes. Joel urges the spiritual leaders to wear sackcloth, to mourn, wail, fast, and spend the night watching in prayer, crying out to God. God himself urges Israel to return to him with fasting, weeping, and mourning. The ascetic pathway runs deep through the biblical story, and it can be broken down into three overlapping dimensions: solitude, austerity, and strictness.
Solitude is the ascetic’s native environment. Even in a crowd or at a party, some ascetics try to steal a few moments of interior quiet, those solitary moments in which colors regain their brightness, truth regains its clarity, and reality loses its fog. Without some time alone, the anchor is lost. Modern-day disciples who are married, work in crowded offices, or serve in busy church ministries still recognize that spending some time apart is essential for a deepening walk with God. For a young mother or father, or for a child living at home, getting completely away may not be possible — but the important thing is what contemplative monk Basil Pennington calls “the sense of apartness.” A family can create a prayer room. An ascetic may arrive hours before anyone else comes to the office because the quiet and solitude are essential for faith. The specific form matters less than the commitment to protecting some space for it.
Austerity strips distractions. One woman’s closest moments with God occur when the children have gone to bed, all the lights are turned out, and everything is quiet. If the children will not be quiet, she has been known to go into the bathroom, turn on the faucet to block other noise, and pray to God there. The point of austerity is not discomfort for its own sake but freedom from sensory overload and compulsive noise — freedom that makes it possible to hear what could not be heard before.
Strictness is the most commonly misunderstood dimension of asceticism. G. K. Chesterton wrote about Francis of Assisi: “The whole point about Francis of Assisi is that he certainly was ascetical and he certainly was not gloomy. He devoured fasting as a man devours food. He plunged after poverty as men have dug madly for gold. And it is precisely the positive and passionate quality of this part of his personality that is a challenge to the modern mind in the whole problem of the pursuit of pleasure.” Ascetics are “strict” only because they want to reserve a major portion of their lives for their passionate pursuit of God. As Chesterton also observed, “It was because the thing was not demanded that it was done” — and in saying so he reminds us of the romantic side to asceticism. True Christian asceticism does not seek suffering or self-denial as an end; it seeks them as a means, a way to love something else so that God might be loved more. The legalism of the Pharisees caused them to set impossibly high standards that other people were obligated to follow, while the Pharisees basked in other luxuries. True ascetics are strict with themselves but treat others with supernatural gentleness.
Consider what this looks like in practice. The ascetic values stillness: trying to be silent for just a few hours reveals how distracted we have become, and if that silence is given time, most people not only grow comfortable with it but become fond of it. Fasting reveals how much time and thought is taken up by transitory matters and can involve much more than food — television, radio, movies, certain types of food, desserts, or meats. The ascetic is willing to give up the delights and consolations of this world so as to enjoy the delights and consolations found in God. Working hard is acceptable to God; done in the right spirit, it can be part of worship. It is startling to realize that Jesus was a common laborer for ninety percent of his life, and only a small portion of his time was spent in visible public ministry. Unless we want to accuse Jesus of being a poor steward of his time, we must reevaluate our distinction between secular and sacred work. Retreats — whether a few hours, a full day, or a week — give the ascetic time to focus on drawing nearer to God. Simple living environments, rooms reserved especially for prayer, and simplified dress and schedule all serve the same end. And when sickness, heat, cold, hunger, or tiredness come — and they will — the ascetic can either adopt a demanding spirit and stunt spiritual growth, or embrace them and mature in faith. Attitude will make all the difference.
The temptations of the ascetic are real and worth naming. It is possible to fast and pray in ways that are ultimately for oneself rather than for God — a danger the Lord warned about through Zechariah when he asked the people, “When you fasted and mourned, was it really for me that you fasted?” Jesus spent lengthy periods of prayer in solitude, but these were always followed by public times of ministry. He urged his disciples to follow the same pattern — ministry followed by withdrawal and rest. The need for spiritual refreshment must be balanced with the obligation to reach out to others. Solitude should renew service, not replace it; hidden communion and visible love belong together.
Chapter 7 — Activists
The activist defines worship as standing against evil and calling sinners to repentance. These Christians often view the church as a place to recharge their batteries so they can go back into the world to wage war against injustice. They may adopt either social or evangelistic causes, but they find their home in the rough-and-tumble world of confrontation, energized more by interaction with others — even in conflict — than by being alone or in small groups. Moses, Elijah, Habakkuk, and Peter are the patron saints of this temperament: men who challenge with their courage and leadership while also encouraging through their weaknesses. The activist cannot expect to faithfully serve God and be liked by God’s enemies. That is simply part of the cost.
Francis Schaeffer wrote in his seminal work How Should We Then Live? that “as Christians we are not only to know the right world view, but consciously to act upon that world view so as to influence society in all its parts and facets across the whole spectrum of life, as much as we can to the extent of our individual and collective ability.” That vision animated activists throughout church history, and it still does. The difference between Christian activism and mere quarrelsomeness lies in motivation: true Christian activists live for God and for his love alone. When activism is oriented around the love of God, it is as acceptable to God as the contemplative’s prayer. When it is oriented around confrontation for its own sake, it feeds a sinfully divisive spirit rather than the unifying Holy Spirit. Walking prayer is one particularly helpful practice for activists: an evangelist may intercede for a city block by walking around it while praying silently; an intercessor may walk around a government building while praying for justice, making the physical movement an act of spiritual warfare.
The temptations of activists cluster around three areas. The first is becoming judgmental — making the mistaken assumption that the holier one becomes, the less one should be able to tolerate sinners. This is clearly not true; the holiest man who ever lived ate with sinners and was called their friend. The second is ambition and its companion, sexual temptation. At its root, ambition is a fight against powerlessness and for control, and this search for control, unimpeded by concern for another’s welfare, provides fertile ground for lust. The third is elitism and resentment — the tendency of those who have worked hard to believe they have earned more than those who have not. When David’s men who had stayed behind while others fought wanted to withhold plunder from those who had remained with the supplies, David corrected them sharply: “God, not our own strength, gave us this victory, so everyone is going to share.” The activist’s courage and confrontational energy are gifts; their abuse turns them into instruments of division rather than redemption.
Chapter 8 — Caregivers
Caregivers serve God by serving others. They often claim to see Christ in the poor and needy, and their faith is built up by interacting with people in need. Whereas caring for others might wear many people down, this activity recharges a caregiver’s batteries. Something moves inside the caregiver when encountering people with profound needs — not in an idealized way but with full understanding of why ancient monks often considered people with disabilities to be especially holy. The lessons that vulnerable and broken people can teach are profound, and the caregiver knows this not as a theology but as lived experience.
The biblical portrait of Mordecai shows caregiving at its finest. In just two chapters of the book of Esther, Mordecai provides for an orphan and protects a king. He is not a people pleaser, however — when serving God and serving others came into conflict, Mordecai pleased God and refused to bow to Haman regardless of the personal cost. Once Israel was victorious, Mordecai’s caregiving continued. He established a yearly festival to celebrate God’s protection and intervention and easily could have established a monument to his own faithfulness. Instead, he decreed that the Israelites celebrate by sending presents to one another and giving gifts to the poor. His epitaph, the last verse of Esther, captures what a caregiving life looks like in summary: “Mordecai the Jew was second in rank to King Xerxes, preeminent among the Jews, and held in high esteem by his many fellow Jews, because he worked for the good of his people and spoke up for the welfare of all the Jews.” At every point, Mordecai was looking after others — first an orphan, then a king, then a nation, then the poor.
Jesus himself placed his own needs underneath the needs of others. He had a more important mission to accomplish than anyone who has ever lived, yet he still found time to care for the basic needs of a sick, hungry, and unruly crowd. Nobody is so important or so wise that they can excuse themselves from practical helps. The New Testament writers are unanimous in connecting love for others directly to love for God. John tells us that we know we have passed from death to life because we love our brothers, and adds that if anyone has material possessions and sees a brother in need but has no pity, how can the love of God be in him? Paul joins him: “Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.” The writer of Hebrews equates helping God’s people with loving God himself: “God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them.” James says that pure and faultless religion is to look after orphans and widows in their distress. And Ezekiel’s devastating indictment of Sodom reveals that her gravest sin was not what it is typically thought to be: “She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.”
Mother Teresa said it plainly: “God died for you and for me and for that leper and for that person dying of hunger and for that person on the street. It’s not enough to say you love God. You also have to say you love your neighbor. Love, to be true, has to hurt. This requires people giving until it hurts.” The opportunities for caregiving are limitless: adopting a prisoner, helping a friend through a personal crisis, lending money, helping someone battling substance abuse, volunteering on a rescue squad, donating time at a battered women’s shelter, counseling at a pregnancy care center, working in a soup kitchen, fixing a car, repairing a house, making recordings for the blind, watching the children of tired parents, or providing budgeting counseling for someone struggling to manage money. In his book Conspiracy of Kindness, Steve Sjogren suggests mixing service with evangelism — providing cool drinks in rush-hour traffic, hot chocolate and cookies on a university campus, free popsicles to joggers at the local park, raking leaves for senior citizens, shoveling snow from driveways. The surprise of neighbors when they see such generosity is itself a powerful witness. We have to pass through the pain of sacrifice before we experience the joy of obedience.
The temptations of caregivers are worth naming clearly. Caregiving is not a license to judge others who serve God in different ways. All Christians are called to care for others, but there are different ways this obligation can be fulfilled, and it is not for any one person to judge the validity of someone else’s worship. Paul writes to Timothy that anyone who does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever — a reminder that the closest caregiving responsibilities come first. The caregiver who neglects family in the name of serving the world may be serving personal needs more than God’s.
Chapter 9 — Enthusiasts
Excitement and mystery in worship are the spiritual lifeblood of the enthusiast. Where sensates want to be surrounded by beauty and intellectuals love to grapple with concepts, enthusiasts are inspired by joyful celebration. They are the cheerleaders for God and the Christian life — let them clap their hands, shout “Amen!” and dance in their excitement. If their hearts are not moved, if they do not experience something of God’s power, something is missing. They do not want simply to know concepts but to experience them, to feel them, to be moved by them. God speaking through a dream is consistent with the nature of God, who is always pursuing us, speaking even while we sleep, giving evidence of his infinite and unlimited nature as opposed to our finite and limited existence. God spoke to Jacob, Joseph, Solomon, and Daniel through dreams. Joel prophesied that when the Spirit of God would be poured out on believers, their old men would dream dreams and their young men would see visions.
Celebration has a wide background in Scripture. Three major feasts were prescribed in the Old Testament — Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles — and several other religious celebrations surrounded them. The Feast of Tabernacles involved a seven-day feast in which the Israelites were commanded to rejoice. Programmed celebration also gave way to individual, spontaneous celebration. David, the man after God’s own heart, danced enthusiastically before the ark of the covenant. Acts 2 refers to speaking in tongues and foretells of receiving dreams, witnessing signs, and experiencing wonders. Paul and Silas sing hymns while in prison. Paul exhorts the Ephesians to use psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs in their worship. According to the book of Revelation, worship in heaven involves crying out in a loud voice and the roar of a great multitude shouting “Hallelujah!” — the enthusiast finds herself at home in these texts in a way that quieter temperaments may not.
Celebratory worship must still include reverence, and this is not a minor caveat. In the midst of a celebration of the ark of the covenant’s return to Israel, the people celebrated with all their might — festive music with tambourines, harps, cymbals, and trumpets filled the air. In the middle of this joyous celebration, the ark rocked slightly, and Uzzah, forgetting what he was carrying, reached out to touch the ark, and immediately he died. In the midst of a celebration, it is easy to forget how fearful and awesome God is. Without reverence, celebration degenerates into shallow triviality. Creation and creativity also belong to this pathway. We celebrate God by using the life he has given us to create other things — building a business, writing a poem, painting a picture, or planting a garden can be profoundly holy experiences. Far more than hobbies, these activities can be powerful expressions of worship. One of the most powerful antidotes to addiction, in fact, is participating in creative activities that lift people out of themselves and into positive, constructive acts of creation.
Enthusiasts need to be especially careful to remain true to seeking and loving God rather than always searching for new experiences. Feelings come and go, and enthusiasts should not apologize for enjoying them, but they should avoid becoming dependent on them. As soon as dreams or ecstatic experiences are sought for their own sake, the path has slipped from true Christianity toward what might be called circus spirituality. On the other hand, it makes little sense to completely deny the usefulness of something just because it can be abused. The enthusiast has a precious gift and a special calling — the capacity to celebrate God and keep expecting him to move in supernatural ways, even in the darkest night. That is not a liability to be managed; it is a treasure to be protected.
Chapter 10 — Contemplatives
Contemplatives refer to God as their lover, and images of a loving Father and Bridegroom best capture their vision of him. Their favorite passages may come from the Song of Songs, as they enter what they call the divine romance. The focus is not necessarily on serving God, accomplishing great things in his name, or even obeying a set of commands. Rather, these Christians seek to love God with the purest, deepest, and brightest love imaginable. They want to enjoy God and learn to love him in ever deeper ways. Contemplatives remind us that God does not seek obedient but dispassionate servants; he seeks those who experience a passionate love so strong it burns away other attachments. The classic biblical example is Mary of Bethany, who sat and worshiped at Jesus’ feet and was commended by Jesus for doing so. A true contemplative is not going to seek the spotlight, which is why the best modern-day examples are largely unknown — but anyone who loves that story of Mary and feels a kindred spirit with her may be a contemplative.
To enter the devotion of contemplatives, one must begin by emptying life of those things that choke out desire for God. These may not be sinful things; too much busyness on its own will effectively kill earnest contemplation. Calling to mind the stations of the cross has historically been a popular method. Christians simply pray through the various events surrounding Jesus’ crucifixion — from Gethsemane through the sentence of death, Jesus receiving his cross, falling under its weight, Simon helping carry the cross, the women mourning, Jesus falling again, being stripped of his clothing, being nailed to the cross, calling out to John and Mary, dying, being taken down, and finally being laid in the tomb. At each point, the contemplative pauses and pictures the truth of Scripture in the mind, allowing the full weight of each moment to settle.
The temptations of the contemplative are subtle. Healthy contemplatives understand that rich human relationships are a way to enjoy God’s love, just as solitary and intimate prayer is. The tendency to withdraw entirely from others in the name of devotion must be resisted, because God gives himself through community as well as solitude. Spiritual gluttony is a related danger — beginning to seek the feelings of closeness with God instead of God himself. The contemplative path is not about pursuing spiritual states; it is about pursuing a person.
Contemplatives remind us of a startling fact: there is one thing that each individual Christian can do that nobody else can — give personal love and affection to God. God can raise up plenty of evangelists, teachers, writers, and witnesses. But only each individual person can give God their own personal love, a love that God wants very much. A marriage counselor encounters this same dynamic: a husband goes into a long recital of all he is doing — holding down two or three jobs, building a new house, buying everything. But the wife quietly replies: “If only he would stop for a few minutes and give me himself.” Sometimes it seems that God, seeing his people rushing about in all their doing of good, might say to himself: if only they would stop for a few minutes and give me themselves.
Chapter 11 — Intellectuals
In the book of Proverbs, we are told to cry aloud for understanding and to search for it as for hidden treasure. “Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding.” Intellectuals need their minds to be stirred before their hearts come truly alive. They are likely to be studying — and in some instances arguing for or against — topics such as Calvinism, infant baptism, the ordination of women, and predestination. These Christians live in the world of concepts. Faith is something to be understood as much as experienced. They feel closest to God when they first understand something new about him. Some intellectuals, shaped by a personality that is shy or withdrawn, might avoid intellectual confrontation but still be fed primarily by intellectual activity. Jesus himself revealed intellectual tendencies. At twelve years old he was found discussing the law in the temple. Teaching was a large part of his ministry, and though he was forceful in his denunciation of intellectual contrivances that kept people from God, he understood that the mind, as well as the heart, had to be transformed.
The brutal fact is that not one person in a hundred has the faintest notion what the church teaches about God, man, society, or the person of Jesus Christ. What we believe about God will affect how we serve him, in the same way that what we believe about a person will affect how we treat that person. Think how much stronger Christians would be if they each picked one topic per year for in-depth study. In just a few years, a person could become quite conversant on a number of important truths. The church would be a vastly stronger institution if its members applied themselves with a little more fervor to developing the minds God has given them.
Intellectuals can aim to broaden their faith by gaining understanding of the basic disciplines of theological training. These disciplines include church history, biblical studies, systematic theology, ethics, and apologetics — five areas that together comprise a good start toward building an informed Christian mind. The major creeds deserve familiarity even when they are not part of one’s own tradition: the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Athanasian Creed, the Augsburg Confession, and the Westminster Confession together form a solid foundation. We have as much time as God gives us on this earth to begin handing our minds over, bit by bit, to the truth of God. The Holy Spirit is a great teacher, and the Bible is a reliable and authoritative body of teaching. These are not limiting constraints but extraordinary resources.
The temptations of intellectuals are equally well documented. Paul warned Timothy not to have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments because they produce quarrels. The Lord’s servant must not quarrel but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful — gently instructing those who oppose, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth. The mark of a Christian is love and grace, not prideful displays of knowledge. Someone with a beautiful voice can still be obnoxious if she sings at inappropriate times, and someone with a superior mind can still be offensive if he does not learn the time and the place to engage others in proper discourse. Knowledge puffs up; love builds up. The intellectual pathway is most beautiful when love and learning walk together.
Chapter 12 — Tending the Garden of the Soul
Discovering our strong tendencies and predominant spiritual temperament gives us the information we need to construct a comprehensive plan for spiritual growth. If we tend our garden, we will have plenty with which to feed others. If we give it only cursory attention, we may have enough to feed just ourselves. If we completely neglect our garden, we will become so hungry that we turn into consumer Christians, feeding off of others rather than offering anything in return. The pathways are not an end in themselves; they are means of sustaining a relationship that then overflows into the lives of everyone around us.
We were made to love God. Each of us stands before an open plot of land. God will scour heaven and earth to provide what we need to plant and maintain a beautiful garden of love, intimacy, and fellowship with him. Not a second of our existence passes without God thinking about how to turn our hearts toward him. Not one single second. The almost unbelievable joy is that each person can enjoy a relationship with God that he will have with no one else. And God eagerly, passionately, yearns for that relationship to begin — and to deepen, season by season, all the way to the end.