Spirituality Column #727

October 20, 2020

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Spirit with a Capital S

By Bob Walters

On a recent, breezy evening at an outdoor celebration, I met a devout man of another faith and engaged in a leisurely and thoroughly enjoyable conversation.

Without argument, suspicion, or disagreement, we discovered much about each other’s lives, families, professions, confessions, and priorities, and encouraged each other in our separate but sincere and life-defining faiths.  Laying aside – ignoring, really – any hint of doctrinal testing or competition for God’s larger favor, we spoke as men and brothers seeking only friendship while sharing mutual respect.  Truly a conversation to reflect on. 

How rare.  What a joy. 

Our chief point of agreement, exposed mid-conversation, was how faith means nothing if it doesn’t first inspire us to love, serve, and generally get along with and nurture our fellow human beings.  God is honored when our relationships reflect freedom, joy, and responsibility, not control, fear, and irresponsibility. 

Much of society seems to have lost especially that part about responsibility.  And a large swath of many different religions, sects, denominations, etc., have redefined freedom as “doing what I want” and “demanding what I get for free.”  This first priority of using and defending freedom to honor God is lost on a secular world of physical desires, human lusts, power plays, fear of death, and contrived spirituality (small “s”).

Freedom is an act of our own will, yes, but it is will freely bestowed by the true God.  We have to aspire to freedom: to seek it, discipline ourselves for it, and prioritize our desires to nurture, share, and respect freedom.  Passive human acceptance of the self-centered but self-defeating ill-behavior of others is not freedom; it is enablement, and never brings joy. 

Happiness and pleasure, maybe; or quite possibly misery and despair.  Not joy.

The default, natural posture of our fallen humanity is to be taken care of, as we are taken care of as young children.  The importance of parents – the moral guideline of raising children – is to instill the desire for freedom, to teach responsibility, to seek the creative and the kind.  It works well in America.  Throughout the Bible we learn, from God’s view, “what works best” for linking God’s true Spirit with man’s God-installed will.

And that is called “God’s love.”  God sent Jesus Christ to be sure we knew that. 

Faith is the trip-wire for understanding God’s intentions.  The purpose of God’s will that we learn in and through Jesus Christ is not only to find comfort and confidence in the truth and proven existence of God, but to dedicate our energies and purpose, with obedience and responsibility – and Spirit – to spending our freedom on God’s glory.

I hope I see my new friend again sometime.  Due to geography, jobs, and relational degrees of separation, our paths would not naturally cross.  And, it is unlikely our families would worship together, but that’s OK.  I deeply thank God for the lesson of how close we can be to, and to love, all God’s people; there is no one He didn’t create.

In this season of wide civic dissension, it was a joyful reminder of God’s grace.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is cheerier talking about Jesus than about politics.