by Margaret Josephson Rinck, Ed.D.
What haunts you these days? What calls to your deepest heart? What gives you the sense that life is still out there somewhere ahead of you? People, places, music, animals? Sports, nature, outdoors?Literature, art, books, video, movies, computer games?
What are you longing for, aching for, yearning for in the middle of the night? more intimacy? more love? more money? more security? more stability? more peace? a baby? marriage? divorce?
What anticipation do you have for the days ahead? Resignation? Joy? Excitement? Sorrow? Drudgery? Achievements? Contentment? Challenge?
But maybe you have given up. . .Maybe you are secretly callous, cynical, resigned. John Eldredge and Brent Curtis comment:
"resignation is the acceptance of the loss as final. . .. it is in this condition that we choose to see good as no longer startling in its beauty and boldness, but simply as "nice". Evil is no longer surprising; it is normal." (Sacred Romance, p. 126)
We ALL come to this place at one time or another. Can you think of a time when you felt this way? At these times, we want to chuck it all, resign from the human race and just get by. Yet our heart won’t let us. It keeps nagging at us, so we search around for something, and at times, anything to quiet its plaintive cries. We despair of connecting to God in the way we truly long for, so we compromise and seek " "other lovers”. Even those of us who have discovered God as Father through Christ come to this place: a place of the desert. Listen to the authors of Sacred Romance:
"But this side of Eden, even relationship with God brings us to a place where a deeper work in our heart is called for if we are to be able to continue our spiritual journey. It is in this desert experience of the heart, where we are stripped of the protective clothing of the roles we have played in our smaller stories, that the Message of the Arrows reasserts itself. HEALING, REPENTANCE, AND FAITH are called for in ways we have not know previously. At this place in our journey, we face a wide and deep chasm that refuses us passage THROUGH SELF-EFFORT. And it is Go's intention to use this place to eradicate the final heart walls and obstacles that separate us from Him. " (Sacred Romance, pp. 126-127)
Take a minute and jot down the answers to these 3 questions:
- What "deeper work of the heart” has God initiated in you?
- How is the "shining part of yourself", the "shimmering self", your "spring of life” (Proverbs 4:23) - that is, your Heart - the real you - doing these days?
- What heart walls or obstacles separate you from God, self or others, lately?
The Three Paths
When we reach this place of resignation, of facing the barriers between ourselves and God, we have the choice to take one of three paths:
................... The Highway of Discipline, Duty,
Or
................... The "Freeway" of Indulgence,
Or
................... The Way of the Heart: The Road Less Traveled
Let's examine what these paths look like.
What do these roads look like?
| The Way of the Heart | Highway of Discipline | Way of Indulgence |
| Can't see it clearly | Easy to see, runs straight ahead, clear signposts | Seems urgent, important, demanding |
| Ominous clouds | Looks promising and healthy | Looks exciting, fun |
| Directions are irritating and vague | Lots of rules, guides, and maps | No rules to hinder you; do as you please |
| Must deal with real emotions: disappointment, loss, grief, loneliness, joy, abandonment, ectasy | Experience shame of "not being good enough" or lots of false guilt | Encounter fear, shame, lust, anger |
| Involves holding or heart open and empty before God, trusting His Heart is good | Relies on competence, order, duty, obedience, control, being "nice" to anesthetize our hearts | Relies on things, people experiences, which are not themselves transcendent, to give us a taste of the transcendence we long for leading to the binding of our hearts to our desire with bonds of addiction: affairs, drugs, porn, obsessions, sports fanaticism, living off our giftedness |
As you have come along the path of life, which way have you chosen? Where are you now? What "other lovers" have you encountered? Many of us have found that even feelings or feeling states can be "other lovers". Eldredge and Curtis mention how the feelings of shame, anger, lust, fear/anxiety and false guilt can "cover" or protect us from more "wild" emotions like abandonment, grief, joy, love, pain of loss. Can you think of any examples in your own experience where this happened? Categories of "other lovers" could be addictions and indulgences; and obsessions/compulsions (i.e., working harder with self-effort to make life work).
Anyone who knows anything about addiction, realizes that it is a slave master. As Eldredge and Curtis point out, indulgence is a dangerous choice because our hearts are taken captive by the indulgence/false lover, which binds itself to our desires. Stuffing our desires or burying our heart is not much better, for it leads to despair just as indulgence does. We try to quench our thirst with either indulgence or working hard to be 'good', and yet our thirst does not become satisfied.
What do you think of the idea that Jesus invites us to thirst; while Satan (the Enemy) invites us to control? Why would letting our thirst grow, holding our hearts before God like an empty cup, be a healthy strategy? What good will it do?
Of course, the answer is that if we remain thirsty long enough, we will realize where our thirst is meant to be quenched: in God alone. Yet if God is who we are really seeking when we run after false lovers, why don't we just seek Him to start with? How is choosing God above all else (turning to Him over things and people), actually a way of experiencing freedom rather than restricting it?**
*These are some of the spiritual questions with which people struggle. Working with a therapist who is open to spirituality as an adjunct to wholeness can be helpful. Dr. Rinck is an ordained clergy as well as a psychologist, and can offer special expertise to those seeking a Christian perspective. CLICK HERE FOR HER BIO.
**These references are to The Sacred Romance by John Eldredge and Brent Curtis, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1997.
