Our Posture Toward God
This is the third installment in my four-part series on our Attitude, Approach, Posture, and Presence with God. I encourage you to take another look (or look for the first time) at the first two installments on Attitude and Approach before digging in here. After you have done that, we’ll again begin with prayer…
Begin by taking deep breaths, calming your spirit, and praying the following prayer: “God, be with me; Jesus, fill me; Holy Spirit, come!”
Remember, this prayer is about availability and awareness. It is a prayer asking God to give us the grace to become available to Him and aware of His constant presence.
Now, before you go any further, pull out your Bible, and reacquaint yourself with the parable in Luke 18:9–14…
Again, this parable can teach us a lot of things. But for this blog, we want to look at how it speaks to our posture toward God. What is your posture toward God?
Our posture is much deeper than a physical posture (sitting, standing, kneeling, etc.). It is a deep inner posture toward God or away from Him. Is our heart and spirit turned toward Him, or away from Him?
Ever try talking to someone who has turned away from you or even starts turning away from you mid-sentence? How about people turning to their phones as you are speaking to them? How does that make you feel?
When our heart and spirit are turned toward God, we see His face and can feel His embrace. We are not distracted by the things of the world (as Lot’s wife who turned back), but our attention is focused on Him. We are not focused on the disordered loves or attachments of our lives. What do I mean here?
Disordered loves or attachments can be anything that takes our attention and focus off God. Anything that turns our posture from God toward something else: money, positions, possessions, even family or close relationships. None of them is evil or sinful. In fact, they can be wonderful! But the value and worth we place on them can make them something they were not meant to be: a substitute for God.
The Israelites struggled with their posture toward God in this way. We learn in Jeremiah of how God received this wayward posture...
As a thief is shamed when caught, so the house of Israel shall be shamed: they, their kings, their officials, their priests, and their prophets, who say to a tree, “You are my father,” and to a stone, “You gave me birth.” For they have turned their back to me, and not their face. But in the time of their trouble they say, “Arise and save us!” But where are your gods that you made for yourself? Let them arise, if they can save you, in your time of trouble; for as many as your cities are your gods, O Judah. (Jeremiah 2:26-28)
We struggle with the same posture the Israelites struggled with. We, too, have disordered loves and attachments. These loves or attachments can disorder our priorities and keep us from clearly seeing our one true love, GOD. The stronger the love or attachment to ________ (fill in the blank), the more our posture is turned away from God.
Ignatius of Loyola taught that we need indifference to gain true freedom. “Indifference” here is not apathy or not caring. Indifference means that whether or not I have _________ (fill in the blank) does not matter. If I have “it,” I will be thankful and use it for love and service to God, but I won’t be bound to it. But, if I don’t have “it” (or even if God chooses to take “it” from me), I’m okay because God is sufficient.
This indifference brings about true inner freedom so that our posture can be focused toward God rather than away from Him. Ignatius taught there are three classes (or types) of people in their approach to this tension between attachments and God:
The one who procrastinates: This first person feels a growing attachment to their possession(s), and they are concerned that their dependence on it may interfere with giving their life wholeheartedly to God. So, they want to let go of the attachment, but they clutter their life with so many other things and stay so busy that they never get around to it. Even on their deathbed, they are still thinking about letting go of the attachment.
The one who compromises: Like the first person, the second person worries that they are becoming too attached to a certain possession. They sincerely desire to be free of that excessive preoccupation; at the same time, they want to keep the possession. So, they do a lot of good things and make honorable sacrifices, but they fail to do the one thing that they really need to do: free themself from their disordered attachment. In a sense, this person is trying to negotiate with God using their good deeds as a bargaining chip. Rather than conforming their will to God’s will, the compromiser wants God to do what they want to do. In avoiding the difficult choice, the second person compromises with an illusion of freedom with God but remains unfree with respect to the possession.
The one who is truly free or indifferent: Here is Ignatius’s own description:
The person typical of the third class desires to get rid of the attachment, but in such a way that there remains no inclination either to keep the acquired money or to dispose of it. Instead such a one desires to keep it or reject it solely according to what God our Lord will move one’s will to choose, and also according to what the person himself or herself will judge to be better for the service and praise of the Divine Majesty. (Spiritual Exercises 155)
Take note of where the third person begins: they are not sure whether God is asking them to give up the possession; they simply desire to be free to do what God wants them to do. So, they begin by asking God what they should do and are open to how God directs them through prayer, experience, reasoning through different options, and the wise counsel of others. They constantly check their motivations. They discover that their motivations and desires are often mixed (the tension, the tug-o-war, doesn’t disappear; see Romans 7:15-25).
Since the tension is always there, they try to choose from a desire to better love and serve God and others rather than hold on to their disordered love. So, they don’t mind waiting to decide. They want to be sure that it is for God and not an attempt to hold on to the disordered love. But they also don’t procrastinate in deciding. They make a timely decision as they want to move forward in honoring God over self (acknowledging that they rarely reach complete indifference).
So, which class or type of person are you? The Procrastinator, Compromiser, or the one who is Indifferent (or truly free)? Who you are determines your posture toward God. But there is more to it than just turning toward God, we must also be present with Him...
Stay tuned for Presence…