WHERE IS GOD IN YOUR LIFE? THREE RETREATS IN CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALITY By Susan M. Provost August 2009 Dedication My desire is to share my understanding of love with others, so they can experience what I have found in my own relationship with God. However, I could not have done any of this if not for the loving patience of my husband, Joe. Joe mirrors Jesus for me in his gentle concern for every part of my life and in the love and acceptance he has always shown me over the 30 years of our marriage. Thank you, Joe!! TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION.............................................................................................................1 Discussion of the Problem.......................................................................................1 General View of Spirituality....................................................................................5 Understanding the Soul………………………………………………………........6 Christian Spirituality……………………………………………………….. .........7 God is Present in Our Lives.....................................................................................9 The Importance of Prayer . ………………………………………… .........9 Christian Spirituality Expressed in Community....................................................11 Definition of Terms................................................................................................12 The Importance of Developing a Relationship with God......................................18 2. REVIEW OF LITERATURE ........................................................................................20 Introduction............................................................................................................20 Spirituality on the Rise...........................................................................................21 Christian Spirituality..............................................................................................22 Faith.......................................................................................................................24 Prayer as Communication with God......................................................................25 Spirituality in Community.....................................................................................26 Church Community and Religion..........................................................................27 Chapter Summary..................................................................................................29 3. HOW THE WORKSHOPS ARE DESIGNED..............................................................31 4. WORKSHOPS.................................................................................................................35 Love one Another..................................................................................................35 Who do you say that I am?..................................................................................162 The Message has not changed; tell them that I love them. ..................................285 5. CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................399 6. REFERENCES & APPENDIX.....................................................................................408 © Susan Provost, 2009. All Rights Reserved. For print copies of this work write to [email protected]. v Chapter I Introduction Quite often people do not know how to develop a relationship with God, in order to be able to feel God’s love for them and to be able to share that love with others. They need to be given the tools necessary to develop a relationship with God and to understand how that relationship is celebrated in community. Through the development of three two-day workshops, I have presented a program that will show readers and participants how to recognize God in their lives and to feel His love. I have designed these workshops to help people to continue their spiritual journey to greater connection with God. Finally, I have created these workshops to help others to see the importance of the Christian faith as a spiritual roadmap to be used on the path to God. Discussion of the Problem The reason why this program is necessary is that it emphasizes spirituality and will help others to make a connection with God. We all seek to acquire an understanding of who we are and why we are here. In the search for this knowledge, some will study the past and dig for remnants of ancient civilizations in the ground. Some will study books on psychology and philosophy. Some will study history in order to discover whether our past can give us an understanding of the present. We are looking to discover the source of our being and we are looking to connect with that source. The spiritual quest is not just one of many things we attempt to accomplish in our lives. It is our life. As Christians, the goal of that spiritual quest is Jesus Christ. In the spiritual life, a commitment is made to follow Jesus and that commitment encompasses our entire being. It is not a decision that we make once and leave the rest to chance. When we decide that we want to know © Sue Provost 2009. All Rights Reserved. 1 Jesus, it is a decision we renew every day of our lives. However, once the decision is made, we may not know how to begin developing that relationship, since we do not see Jesus in the flesh. The essence of spirituality is the sense of knowing that God loves us. We must know this not only in our heads, but also in our hearts and in our everyday lives. God loves us so much that He sent His only son, Jesus, to die for us in atonement for our sins. His love was not determined by our actions, but on how much He loved us. He loves us first and it is our quest to discover how through His love we can be transformed into vessels of love that He pours out to our world. We cannot accomplish this transformation on our own. It is obvious that we need God’s help in this transformation, but it is difficult to determine what it is that God wants from us. Each of us needs to fully grasp and understand just how much God loves us. We need to see how He is intimately concerned about every single detail of our lives. Reading that God loves us in His Word and understanding that He died for our sins, can still be merely intellectual pursuits. However, receiving His Spirit and experiencing His Life in and through us, is something we can never deny as being ultimate, personal love (Girzone 1998). However, the way in which to feel that ultimate personal love is not readily apparent to us. Unfortunately, our culture encourages the need to be constantly in motion. We have the need to be productive and fill all our time with something. We become nervous when we encounter empty space, when there is a gap in a conversation, when we do not know what to say, when we are sitting in a waiting room and there are no magazines on the table to read. For most people, just doing nothing is unthinkable. It can be difficult to encounter God while the focus of our lives is on the importance of earthly power and possessions. We cannot notice God working in our lives when we do not take the time to stop and notice anything. We do not know how to step out of the world of progress. We are © Sue Provost 2009. All Rights Reserved. 2 moving so fast through our lives that we take no time to notice what is happening around us when the noticing is not necessary to fulfill our goal. In essence, we are programmed not to accept who we are, but we are driven to judge ourselves and others by earthly success, productivity, and accumulation of things. Consequently, we have no real appreciation for ourselves or the others we encounter. We are trapped in a jail of our own creation. At some point, we discover that these goals of success, productivity, and the constant drive to acquire things do not fill or satisfy the soul within us. We burn out from what has become a road to spiritual death. We look for someone to convince us that we are of value for who we really are, not what we and our culture chooses to label us. We look for someone who we do not have to prove that we are worth something. We look to connect with the Creator, the Savior, and the Spirit of the God who loves us. Our soul yearns to make that connection and to feel whole, to feel significant, and to feel loved. We may search, but we have not learned how to make this connection. Our own culture and conditioning may keep us from developing a relationship with God. Even if you attend a Christian church, spirituality and relationship with God may never be discussed, nor looked at as a desire of the soul to be attained. This program was created to specifically address how to develop that relationship with God. Christianity with its rich spiritual tradition can provide a valuable lens through which people can discover and articulate their spirituality. Christianity can help us to feel the experience of our encounter with God and help us in the development of our relationship with Him. It is therefore important for the Christian Churches to encourage and foster spiritual development in new and innovative ways. An emphasis on theology and rules is not the answer. This is why I have developed these three workshops with a specific goal of helping others to develop their spirituality in the Christian tradition. © Sue Provost 2009. All Rights Reserved. 3 Christianity can be a logical answer to a quest for spirituality and relationship with God. However, the focus of mainline Christian