A Contrarian's Guide to Knowing God: Spirituality for the Rest of Us

HAVE YOU NOTICED that most of our programs and models for spiritual development follow a strict linear pattern? Step one, followed by step two, and so on. Yet, if we stop and look back at our own spiritual journey, few of us will find anything close to a neatly laid out linear path. For most of us, the road to spiritual growth and maturity is more like a meandering path punctuated by occasional stretches of unexpected twists and turns. So why do we place such a great emphasis on sequential steps and an orderly progression in our discipleship programs and models? I believe it's primarily because linear models and programs are much easier to design and administrate. In reality, most spiritual growth happens on a haphazard need-to-grow or need-to-know basis. As life happens, we're suddenly confronted by the need for personal growth or more biblical information in an area of life that up to now hasn't seemed all that important.

This is not to say everything linear is bad or ineffective. I'm simply suggesting that the linear approach is way overrated and overused. If you're one of the rare straight-line kind of Christians whose primary means of growth has been line-by line, and if you benefit from linear models—by all means keep at it. It's the path that works best for you. Don't worry about your meandering or where you should go next. You'll get where you need to be. But if you're not so straight-line, don't worry about your meandering or where you should go next. You'll get where you need to be as long as you stay on the path and look first to God and Scripture when a need-to-grow or need-to-know crisis pops up. In the meantime, don't fret if you go through a dry spell, or if the standard linear programs fail to produce much fruit. The simple process of meandering through various discipleship options—even in a laissez-faire or stop-and-go fashion—will keep you closely connected and ready to receive the help and information you'll need when a need-to-grow or need-to-know moment hits.

God hasn't called us to be world-class—or even very good—at everything. Instead, he's given each of us our own unique calling together with the necessary gifting to pull it off. Nowhere are we given the responsibility to become proficient in all the strengths and skills he's granted to others (gifts and capacities that perfectly align with their God-given assignment, but often have little to do with ours). Imagine a professional golfer all worked up over his inability to consistently kick field goals. Imagine him spending hours trying to perfect the difficult skill of accurately kicking a football. We'd question our golfer friend's sanity; write him off as a fool. Anyone gifted to be a professional golfer needs to spend the bulk of his time on the driving range and putting green, not on the gridiron trying to master the art of splitting the uprights. Yet that's precisely what we do when we try to emulate all the spiritual disciplines and best practices of all the best Christians we've heard about or known personally.

I'm reminded of the bizarre story of Michael Jordan, arguably the greatest basketball player of all time. Incredibly gifted at basketball, he set it all aside mid-career to seek his destiny on the baseball diamond. It made no sense. Yet there he was toiling in the minor leagues, desperately trying to learn how to hit a curve ball while the spoils and rewards of NBA championships that were his for the taking went to others. I wonder if, in God's sight, our spiritual quest to measure up to everyone else's best traits doesn't look just as ridiculous. As a new Christian desperately trying to match up to the best of everything spiritual, I didn't realize that the Bible spoke to the frustrations I was feeling; that it actually warned against the dangers of this trap I call Best Practices Overload.

A Contrarian's Guide to Knowing God: Spirituality for the Rest of Us

Larry Osborne

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