Writings of a Beholder 🌿 9.29.23

A 'one-size-does-not-fit-all' kind of faith: discovering our unique connection with God

Sep 29, 2023

A ‘One-Size-Does-Not-Fit-All’ Kind of Faith: Discovering Our Unique Connection with God

There were ten of us who made up our life group after church one Sunday morning, sitting in a circle of chairs, heads nodding in agreement as one of us shared that connecting with God feels rather awkward and hard in this season of life. Her honesty sent murmurs of understanding rippling through the room.

I must admit to you that my pride didn’t want to shake her head yes in agreement with the girl’s honesty, but I knew it down deep in my bones to be true of me, too.

The beholder — the one who writes every week to her readers about beholding more of God in the mundane — had lost her sense of awareness of God’s presence in the midst of transition and change.

My pace of life has sped up recently and while it’s been full of good things, it’s still been a bit unsettling setting sail on these unchartered waters. I was sharing with my spiritual director just this week that this season of my life has me feeling like a baby giraffe, of all things. You know, limbs all new and long and gangly, stumbling around trying to find some semblance of balance. It feels as though I’m using muscles that have never been used, or haven’t been used in a long while, but I keep hearing God’s invitation to walk forward anyway. So, here I am, showing up in this season of life, stumbling my way through… long, gangly limbs and all.

Transitional seasons usually bring with them uncertainty, which always leaves me feeling disoriented. And while I try to find my balance in this season, I’m also trying to figure out what connection with God looks like. Because I, like the friend from church, have felt a bit disconnected from His presence lately.

I've been trying to do what I’ve always done, clinging to rhythms and practices that don’t really seem to be working in this season of life. It feels like I’m trying to force a square into a circle, my brow furrowing in frustration as sweat pools at the nape of my neck.

But I’m learning here that God isn’t after my rhythms, my practices, or my ‘quiet time’ routine. While all of those are important and good and help cultivate time with God, these rhythms themselves aren’t the main focus of the spiritual life. If they were, I think we’d be in serious trouble, because the truth of the matter is that life is constantly transitioning and changing and we’re invited to move right with it. This means that sometimes, our practices and rhythms that once fit need to shift in order to help us cultivate what truly matters most: intimacy and communion with God.

John 15 is one of my favorite chapters in the whole Bible because I believe it illustrates beautifully Christ’s ultimate invitation to us; to abide in Him.

“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing… As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.” (John 15:4-5, 9 ESV)

Abide isn’t given as a harsh command to blind obedience, but rather it’s a soft invitation that speaks to the reality of our human condition; we need God. And in His faithful Love, He reaches out a hand and invites us to walk with Him every step of life’s journey and beyond, promising to be present and good no matter what.

So when life transitions and shifts beneath our feet like sinking sand and the birth of a baby, or the death of a loved one, or a new job changes the way we’re required to show up in our lives, God is there, patient with us as we reconfigure what life with Him looks like here.

Because the reality is, there isn’t one right way to connect with the Spirit of God. An hour of quiet time in the morning is a beautiful thing, but you are no less beloved if suddenly that quiet time routine doesn’t fit inside your life anymore. It may be a radical thing to say, but I’m not sure a lot of our church spaces have done the best job of communicating the plethora of ways that God can be found outside of ‘quiet time’. Each of us is created uniquely, meaning that each of us is going to connect with God in a unique way.

For you, it may look like silence and solitude, while for others it may be through art journaling or serving at a food bank. Maybe cultivating intimacy with God here looks like prayer time in the car on your way to and from work or the grocery store. Perhaps a walk in the woods or even just in your neighborhood as you become aware of the beauty of nature is how you connect with God best.

Gary Thomas, in his book, Sacred Pathways, speaks to the heart of this topic of finding different ways to connect with God. In his book, he writes,

“Good spiritual directors understand that people have different spiritual temperaments, that what feeds one doesn’t feed all. Giving the same spiritual prescription to every struggling Christian is no less irresponsible than a doctor prescribing penicillin to every patient.”

After a lot of research and surveying the spiritual needs of others, Gary Thomas details nine spiritual temperaments as a way to encourage you to investigate the different and most effective ways you connect with God. Those nine spiritual temperaments, or pathways, include (thank you Kristin Vanderlip for these brief definitions!):

1. Naturalists connect with God best through the outdoors. They worship most in the midst of God’s creation. They celebrate His Majesty and discover spiritual truths through nature.

2. Sensates connect with God through their senses. Sensates worship through sensual experiences such as sights (like art), sounds (music), smells (incense), and more.

3. Traditionalists connect with God through religious rituals and symbols. They worship through the traditions and sacraments of the church. They believe structure, repetition, and rigidity, like weekly liturgy, lead to a deeper understanding of God and faith.

4. Ascetics connect with God through solitude and simplicity. Ascetics worship through prayer and quiet time, and the absence of all outside noise and distraction. Silence is an important practice for the ascetic.

5. Activists connect with God through activism and fighting for godly principles and values. They worship through their dedication to and participation in God’s truth about social and evangelistic causes. They lean into confrontation as a way of serving God and others.

6. Caregivers connect with God by serving others and worship Him best by giving of themselves. They may nurse the sick and disabled, “adopt” a prisoner, donate time at a shelter, etc.

7. Enthusiasts connect with God through mystery and celebration. They worship with outward displays of passion and enthusiasm. They love God with gusto!

8. Contemplatives connect with God through adoration and spending time just being in the presence of God. Contemplatives worship by their attentiveness, deep love, and intimacy with God. They have an active prayer life.

9. Intellectuals connect with God through their mind and their hearts are opened up to a new attentiveness when they understand something new about God. Intellectuals worship through intense study, apologetics, and intellectual pursuits of their faith.

What’s interesting about these nine pathways is that each of us may relate to quite a few of them, some resonating more than others. That’s because God designed us to cultivate intimacy and connection with Him in a number of different ways!

Learning about these nine sacred pathways has been really helpful to me in this season of my life where I feel like I’ve sort of lost that connection with and awareness of God. Even though I know He never leaves me, and is Immanuel — God With Me — it’s been a comfort to return to the basic knowledge of how I best connect with God so that in this season of change, I can explore new ways of spending time with Him that actually fit with my right-now life.

After reading more in-depth about these nine sacred pathways, I’ve learned that I’m a mix of a naturalist, contemplative, and ascetic, but I’m also finding that the practices of the traditionalist fit within this season of my life right now — like the reading of liturgy every morning in my Common Prayer book.

Now that I know I resonate most with these four pathways, it’s become easier for me to cultivate practices and rhythms that coincide naturally with this faster-paced season of life.

Right now, I’m finding that adopting a breath prayer that names my deepest longings is something that is helping me cultivate intimacy with God. As I move through a busier schedule and fuller days, I’m able to pause for just a few moments and breathe in the presence of God with me.

My morning liturgy and prayer time from my Common Prayer book offer me a structured space that gives me the safety and comfort I need to focus on the presence of God amidst a somewhat unstructured schedule.

Walks throughout the day on a trail or around my neighborhood feed my soul the beauty it needs to usher me into a time of worship and adoration before God.

Time alone in the evenings spent reading or journaling feeds my ascetic need for silence and solitude, attuning me to the presence of the Divine.

These are just a few new (and familiar) practices that I’m crafting into my daily life that are helping me find my balance in this new season. These are the practices that are cultivating sacred spaces for me to respond to God’s invitation to come and abide in His Love.

You and I were not created for a ‘One-Size-Fits-All’ kind of faith.

We were created intricately and uniquely in the image of God, which means our expressions of faith are going to be intricate and unique to us, and I believe that’s exactly how God intended it to be. We all have different ways of showing up in the world, so why wouldn’t the way we show up in our faith and in our relationship with God be any different?

I’m praying that this letter today, and the unpacking of the nine sacred pathways, will be a gentle guide for you to start exploring the many different ways you like to worship and connect with God, too.

I pray that you, friend, would allow yourself the freedom to play, explore, and try new practices and rhythms that may be unfamiliar but just might lead you to a deeper intimacy with the Lover of your soul.

With you on the journey,

Celia

*In the resources section of this letter, I’m going to link a few more resources related to the nine sacred pathways that I hope will be helpful to you in discovering the intricate ways God created you to connect with Him.*

Life Lately

A Breath Prayer for Your Weekend

breathe in:

Teach me, Lord.

breathe out:

To abide in You.

*If you’d like to learn more about the practice of breath prayer, download this complete digital guide to practicing breath prayer.

Resources & Good Things to Pick Up

Give Gary Thomas’s book, Sacred Pathways, a read or listen (I linked Amazon, but you can also rent it from Hoopla!): Sacred Pathways

This article written by Gary Thomas gives a more detailed outline of the nine sacred pathways: Nine Ways to Connect with God

This study guide for Sacred Pathways was created by Adalee Lewis and includes a brief description of the nine sacred pathways as well as recommended practices for each pathway and reflection questions: Sacred Pathways PDF Study Guide

Grab some breath prayer cards, a journal, a candle, and other contemplative resources from my Etsy shop: The Beholding Co.

Grab a copy of my Bible study, You Are Beloved: a 21-day study on how to root your identity in the love of God, over on Amazon. If you’d like a free 3-day sample of the study, reply to this email and I’ll send it right over!

My friend and licensed spiritual director, Kari Bartkus, offers an 8-week journaling program for those who want to process their grief and trauma with God within the safety of blank journal pages. I’ve completed the program myself and can say confidently that it was incredibly impactful and healing: Journal Gently

An Invitation to Pause & Reflect

A regular practice of reflection helps us recognize what’s going on beneath the surface of our souls so we can name it in the Lord’s presence. Because as we learn to name what we feel, what we need, and what we long for, we’re also learning to discern the Spirit’s sweet, gentle voice within our hearts and lives.

Take a few moments today or this weekend to journal or contemplate with the Holy Spirit the following question(s) or prompt(s):

After reading through the descriptions of the nine diffrent sacred pathways, which ones do you resonate the most with?
What’s one rhythm or practice that you could cultivate in this season of life that coincides with how God created you to connect with Him?
What might it practically look like for you right now to abide in Jesus?

Writings of a Beholder 🌿