Spiritual Practice: With Others
For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.
Matthew 18:20
I remember on so many different occasions leaders telling me about the importance of having a personal prayer life and that to really grow in faith you had to do daily personal devotions. They were not wrong; it is just that I did not always (or almost ever), find those times helpful. We are not supposed to say that. At least I felt I was not supposed to say that because it just meant that I must have a weak faith, or poor prayer life, or that I was not trying hard enough. It meant that there was something wrong with me. It meant that I was not going to grow in faith.
Except that was not true either. I was growing in faith, in devotion, in love with God and with his Word. I just did not get much out of trying to do it on my own. What I noticed though is that I could pray and read scripture deeply when I was with others. When we took time to share what we thought, what we were learning, when we prayed together, that is when I felt I was connecting with Jesus, others and myself.
Yes, Jesus often went off by himself to pray, but he also spent a lot of time reading the scriptures with other people (I can’t think of anytime that Jesus read the scriptures by himself). He spent hours praying with his disciples and others, and many hours talking about God with other people. The passage from Matthew are the words of Jesus, “when two or three are gathered in my name I am there”. This does not mean that Jesus is not with you when you are alone or when you are in a mass gathering, it just means that when just a few gather to talk, think, study or pray concerning God and faith Jesus is there too.
We are all made unique and we are all shaped differently by our upbringing and community. Some people can go for a walk in the woods and feel incredibly close to God and have a great conversation there on the path. Others only feel incredibly close to mosquitoes and other bugs as they walk through the woods. And that is ok. For many people healthy spiritual growth happens when they are together with others. I still find these times a great source of rich growth, though now after years of practice, I can also grow in solitude and personal study.
So, if you are the type of person who learns and grows a lot by praying and studying with others, what are you to do in these COVID Days? What does spiritual formation look like for you when we cannot gather?
Perhaps find one or two others like you and get together on Zoom (or another platform), once or twice a week and study scripture together, or agree on a devotional or book to read and then talk about it. You could take turns leading a lectio or imaginative reading together. To slightly twist a scripture verse, “Do not forsake the gathering of the saints, just because we are in pandemic isolation”, just find a different way to gather, and when you do, Jesus will be there with you.