Devotional Time...Why Art Thou Dull?

And so the intrepid adventurer set out on his trail. He hoped, in the end, that he would find that ever elusive prize, that thing which we all so desire. A churro. No. I'm lying. He was looking for creativity.

To clarify before we go any further on this fantastically imaginative adventure, we're approaching this from a very Reading Rainbow-esque perspective. That to say, in the famous words of LeVar Burton, "Don't take my word for it." I'm writing about how to be more creative, something which is somewhat ridiculous. I have my definition of creativity, one which is very different from yours (most likely). What I really want to get at for the next while is how can we start developing a faith which goes beyond mere tedium and enter the realm it should have been in all along, the exciting.

To begin, I say we start small. We'll get ourselves some creativity merit badges before we go change the entire world (don't worry, we'll get there). By small, in this case, I mean personal, particularly a personal devotional. Some of us just cringed, and up until about three months ago I would have been right there with you. I can think of few things in modern Christianity which bring more guilt than the infamous "devo time." Why the guilt? Because we rarely keep a time like this, but everyone tells us we should. Why are we terrible at it? Probably because most of the time it's extremely boring.

Part of this boredom comes from our unfulfilled expectations on what these times are supposed to be. When people talk about devotional times, it generally carries a flavor of an obscenely spiritual experience. They woke up at 4am (because of course a proper devotional time can only be done at a preposterous hour), opened their Bible to a random page, and then the heavens opened and the Lord declared His will for their entire life! AAAAHHHH!.

When this is the glorified example we set as ideal, no wonder we tend to find devotional times so boring. Here would be a typical morning devotional for me. I get up at a certain time, because when I do a devotional is not really important. I open to the book of the bible that I decided to read a while ago on my own volition, not because of a direct audible word from God. I read a few chapters, thank God in prayer for what He does, lift up some concerns, and then start another day in which I will do all that I can to love others as Jesus would.

Underwhelming? Maybe a little. But when I come out of a devotional time, I don't feel condemned for not having an uber God moment every morning. I feel encouraged to live out my life faithfully, and most importantly, I'm willing to come back the next day. The reason I share this is so that we can have a healthy foundation for building a creative devotional time. Some of our ideas will go wonderfully. We'll feel engaged, we'll be excited to press on in the future. Other times, we won't have this excitement. When, however, we prepare our hearts to hear from God in whatever way he wants to speak, be it mundane or explosive, we start off on a much healthier footing.

So, foundation established. What now? Now we change the way we think about God.

Truth; God is a person.

I think this should effect the way we treat a devotional time. These times are not just us reading a book, or writing in one of those journals everyone keeps raving about. Any time spent with God is time spent with a person. So let's ask ourselves this; what would you do with a person? Would you talk to them (and hopefully listen as well)? Would you go on a walk? Would you go to a secret spot that only the two of you knew about? You may be wondering how the Bible fits into this (and yes, the God's word should be a part of a devotional time). What if you didn't know the person that well, but they wrote you a letter telling you all about themselves? That's one aspect of scripture. It's God revealing His persistently loving character on every page. When we let God be the person He is, I believe our time with Him will start to be a lot less boring. He's an exciting guy, we just need to take the time to realize it.

This only represents my thinking, however. I never did many group projects as a history major, but now seems like a good time to start. I would love to hear what has worked for you in your devotional time. What do you do to challenge those moments when things start to get stale, repetitive, boring? How do you let God be interesting? Let's all give each other a hand and be the community God wants us to be, one which helps each other to love Him better.

With His love and grace,

Taylor

Denying the Thumb-Twiddling God of Our Imaginations

When did God get boring?

I've been thinking about creativity lately. Ever since I had the opportunity to come on staff with Illuminate Magazine, a literary journal we publish here at WWU, I find myself regularly challenged with new and exciting ways in which God chooses to present Himself. Over the years, it's become increasingly impossible for me to find God to be droll. I think, though, that I don't share this voewpoint with a great many people.

If I may; an exploration on how many people view the concept of "worship," specifically the "to God" variety.

One enters a building (be it large or small) and sees two distinct groups of people, one quite genuinely excited to be present, and another largely ambivalent towards the experience as a whole. After moving amongst these groups, one enters into a particular room, in which a ritual takes place. This ritual, whatever it may consist of, is quite similar from week to week. If that description seemed, I don't know, boring (as it did to me), that's because tragically this is the case for many worship services across the nation. Even more tragic, I find that a good deal of people find this same experience to be characteristic of all manner of settings focused on God:

Personal Devotion: Boring
Small Group: Trés Boring
Opportunities for Service: Good for a time, but after a while? Boring (Oh look, a trend!)

Though I have a hard time relating to this experience (as I've simply been blessed with some wonderfully engaging communities), I think at some point anyone involved in a church community has either experienced or heard this lament from someone they know.

The most saddening thing about this predicament is that God's character represents the antithesis of our experience. Here are some things I come up with off the top of my head, examples of God's astounding creativity.

The World
Billions upon billions of unique personalities embodied in people over millennia.
The Tabernacle (take a look at Exodus, that thing is amazing).
My personal favorite: The narrative of scripture as a whole. Sure, it comes in a bunch of different books, but taken together it represents one single love story told over thousands of years. Absolutely beautiful, and fantastically creative.

The thing that strikes me about each of these examples is that God didn't wait for anyone's permission to start being creative. No one came along and said, "Okay God, we (the ever-ominous committee) have decided things need to be spiced up a bit." He just went ahead and did it. I think we could do with a bit of that initiative.

But wait, we wonder, we're not God. How are we supposed to start being creative on that kind of a scale?

I'm not saying that each of us needs to go and make our own planet. In fact, don't do that, I would miss you all. No planet making. What would be good, however, is if each of us stopped waiting for something to come along and tell us how to do things in a new and creative way. If our church is boring, why do we just sit there and take it? God isn't boring, so why should His church be? Let's start being bold and making suggestions on how we can make things better. If we can't stay awake through our own devotional times, why do we keep doing the same thing day in and day out, expecting different results?

I've been thinking a lot on this lately, and I think I'm going to keep thinking on it. I'm going to give this whole "series" thing a try. For the next while, we'll look at the different areas of our life, and try to explore ways we can make them more creative. Maybe this'll work, maybe it won't. But isn't that what being creative is all about, trying something in the hopes that things will be better than they were before? With this in mind, I cordially invite all of you to join me on my journey to reconnect with God's creativity. Let's make worshipping Him interesting again.

With His love and grace,

Taylor