Breaking Free From the Practical

The Internet has taught its disciples that there shall be no mystery to anything. We can get to the bottom of any question, lay open the bare facts to any secret. In fact, if there is mystery, we’ve been thoroughly discipled to question it. Mystery equals some probable deception or scandal. Facts are safe; nothing else is.

The eradication of mystery would also be shocking to our spiritual forebears. We feel that in order to experience Jesus and access his help, we need to understand the spiritual like we do nutrition, exercise, or retirement plans. A friend asked me this week, “Yes, but how do I love God? How do I take refuge in him? I mean, practically speaking?”

It is the question of the person discipled by the Internet.

As soon as you hear the demand for the practical, in simple, clear immediate steps, you know you are talking to a Disciple of the Internet. It is a very different question, a different posture than someone approaching a saint of ages past and asking, “Teach me to commune with God.”

If I told you, “The Bible says that prayer is powerful,” you would say, “Sure.” If I told you, “I saw this study on how prayer rewired the brains of older nuns into a more peaceful frame of mind,” you would say, “Wow. That is so cool. I think I want to pray more.”

It’s madness, this addiction. My friend was asking how in the same way he would ask, “How do I change the water filter in my refrigerator?” His question (I know him well) was filled with demand for the mechanics, as in, Make God like my refrigerator—not mysterious, but concrete. Give me the practical. Make it practical. Give me the latest science or I won’t believe you; in fact, I hardly believe you now.

Do you understand that to make Jesus and his Kingdom practical is to strip it of all wonder, mystery, and power?

It’s like asking for the mechanics of falling in love, enjoying sunlight on the ocean, comforting a frightened child. It’s like refusing to trust laughter until someone explains the neuroscience. Honestly, asking, “How do I love God?” is like asking, “How do I love my son, my daughter?” The heart knows how to love without being told the latest research, for heaven’s sake.
This is the bind we’ve been discipled into—our weary, skeptical pragmatism keeps us from experiencing the God we are dying without.

And there is a way out.

Thank God, there is a way out of the madness and into the joys of daily, rich experiences of Jesus. God and his beautiful Kingdom are much more accessible than your cultural moment has conditioned you to believe and experience.

This is very, very good news.

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