Spritual Formation and Spiritual Frustration

I have been hearing some frustration in the posts by my classmates lately (mine included). I think by and large that goes along with Spiritual formation. Like my friend Pam says the contemplative life is like a path tangled with roots. It is a difficult way. How do we get others to come along with us? How do we really do social justice? How do we really allow God’s power to work through us in supernatural charisms? How do we start? Who do we blame when the Body isn’t as beautiful, sweet smelling, as the incarnate Christ should?

In War and Peace, Tolstoy makes a case that it wasn’t Napoleon or Alexander who determined the course of history, it wasn’t their genius or that of their generals that determined their battles success. It was the hearts of the men, each fueled by the flow of history that determined the war.

As a staff pastor I thought, “if only the the pastor got behind my vision, if only he announced the intergenerational sunday school class from the pulpit, I could succeed.” As I a senior pastor I am learning how little structures and programs affect the hearts of the masses. I can hold out church planting as a last hope... “if only the church’s DNA was different, if only it was hard wired to love the way of discipleship...” If only.... some how I think these hopes are just as hollow unless I can find the place to start. “Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand and I can move the world.”

Skimming through The Great Omission by Dallas Willard, I ran across this quote.

What to do now!
Convert the world? No.
Convert the church? “Judgement,” it is famously said, “begins at the house of God.” It has the divine light and divine provisions, and because of that is most responsible to guide humankind.
But “no” again. Do not “convert the church.”
Your first move “as you go” is. in a manner of speaking: Convert me.

The place to start is in me. The great hope is in me! (and greater is he who is in me than he who is in the world.)