Tag Archives: Faith Development

Serving God in All Our Interactions

Lent

March 31, 2020

Scripture Reading: Isaiah 50:4-9a

The Lord God helps me;
   therefore I have not been disgraced;
therefore I have set my face like flint,
   and I know that I shall not be put to shame;
   he who vindicates me is near.
Who will contend with me?
   Let us stand up together.
Who are my adversaries?
   Let them confront me.
It is the Lord God who helps me;
   who will declare me guilty?
All of them will wear out like a garment;
   the moth will eat them up. –Isaiah 50:7-9

God’s judgment of us is the only judgment that matters. We must, however, remember that one of the things God judges is how we love one another. Thus, we must be in close communion with God for God to help us understand when we are correctly interacting with others, when we need to change our behavior to better represent God’s ways in our ways, and when we need to lovingly take a stand that may put us at odds with others.

One of the first lessons we learn as children is that everyone is not at the same level of development as we are. We can walk while our baby brother crawls. We learn to play with younger siblings and friends at their level while continuing to develop our level, and even be the less experienced persons to someone older. That is a pattern that functions in all aspects of life including our faith development. How we walk with each other as we grow and learn makes a big difference in our maturation and in how we impact the maturation of another. James W. Fowler’s Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning has been helpful to me in understanding that principle.

I have also learned, generally the hard way, that the reaction someone has to me may not have anything or little to do with me at all. Someone having a stomachache or arriving at a meeting after arguing with one of their children or having had a painful childhood experience that clouds their thoughts may react surprisingly on the subject under discussion. And that goes both ways. We all have had to interact with people when we were dealing with burdens or distractions that modify our behavior. Sometimes we need to just let those encounters go and sometimes we need to deal with them outside the immediate situation. All times we need to seek God’s guidance as we self-examine what we could or should have done differently.

Prayer: Lord, in these days of sheltering at home or going forth in the face of an epidemic to meet essential needs grant us the wisdom to understand each other and to practice abundant love. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Stages of Faith

Epiphany

February 13, 2020

Scripture Reading:
1 Corinthians 3:1-9

And so, brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still not ready, for you are still of the flesh. For as long as there is jealousy and quarrelling among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving according to human inclinations? For when one says, ‘I belong to Paul’, and another, ‘I belong to Apollos’, are you not merely human? –1 Corinthians 3:1-4

Infants move from a diet of milk alone to easy-to-digest foods, and finally to whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and sources of protein necessary to develop strong, healthy bodies. Milk does contain important nutrients, but humans literally cannot thrive on milk alone. Just as Jesus said to the devil tempting him in the wilderness, humans cannot live on bread alone*.

James W. Fowler in his book, Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning identifies six stages of faith development that describe the positive results of moving through all six phases and the challenges that occur when we get stuck in any one of the stages without growing through the others.

In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul seems to be identifying people being stuck in one or more of these phases. Perhaps the Corinthians were not understanding well that some people are at different stages than others Just like toddlers learn to walk at different ages, faith develops at different speeds. Rather than battling on who is right and who is wrong or who God loves more than another, we might do well to share our deepest faith experiences so that we can all learn from one another as we grow in truth and faith. We also may need to do some self-examination to see if we have become stuck in our spiritual growth.

Prayer: Lord, make us more aware of where others may be on their spiritual journey as you help us to recognize our own development. Grant us skills in communicating through love at whatever stage we may be. Amen.

*See Matthew 4:4

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.