When you’re IN the flow, you know it.
You just know it.
Athletes talk about being “in the zone”.
Musicians, when playing well together, speak about how “tight” the sound was.
There is a true and good spiritual life corollary, but often a false humility hinders the honest voicing of being in THAT flow.
What’s worth noting with the three examples above is that there is no guarantee IT will happen, ever. The IT, the moment when you know, you just KNOW that it’s all clicking, that IT—there’s no way to perfectly reproduce it. But again you know when it’s there. You know when you’re in that moment. You know exactly what to do. It’s intuitive.
And all three examples require two things of the participant, actor, experiencer, athlete, musician and believer: first Practice and then Doing. Athletes wouldn’t be able to have that transcendent game if they hadn’t run the drills, caught a thousand passes or shot 50 three pointers everyday. Musicians wouldn’t have that perfect show, the “Eric Clapton Unplugged” kind of perfect show, without countless hours of personal scale running, years of
collaborative songwriting and full band rehearsals, plural, all before any single fan arrives with their one-night-only ticket anticipating something, a something a fan can’t even name.
And so with the spiritual life (more specifically so it doesn’t get watered down by any PC police appeasers), so it is with the life hid with Christ in God that the Holy Scriptures promise is applied to believers by faith in the blood of Jesus through the sealing work of the Holy Ghost. The New Testament epistle of Hebrews speaks specifically to our need to be active participants, regular practicers and doers, “holding on to our courage and the hope of which we boast” and “making every effort to enter the rest of God”.
There will be little-to-no opportunity to experience the IN the flow moments of God-on-the-move without first experiencing quiet, study, prayer, worship, reflection and meditation to, on, of and with the Lord God. Friends, if you’ve read this far and you claim no personal dynamic belief and faith in Jesus, this must all sound preposterous.
What?...Kobe draining 81 pts in a single game or the aforementioned Yardbird, Domino, bit of Cream and blues guitar master Clapton AND Jesus all find a common connection with Joal?
They do in this sense: Kobe and Eric were studied, prepared and expectant when their IT moment arrived. It wasn’t surprising. So it is with the Christian life. It is not one of religious duty that drags on to no tangible advantage. Instead it’s a dynamic personal relationship that steadies in the normal and explodes in supernaturally natural ways.
Lately I’ve been mulling on a quote from Pastor Matt Chandler of The Village Church. In a sermon a while back, referencing spiritual growth and development, Matt said “By the grace of God, almost all of the really beautiful, profound things God is going to do in your life He is going to accomplish over a long period of time through a lot of ordinary.”
That spoke to me because I regularly feel uninspired, drab, rote.
Pondering and memorizing Scripture can be hum-drum. Ordinary.
Prayer for the same people, relatives, friends, colleagues and life circumstances can be repetitive. Ordinary.
Going to work consistently, loving the same woman and children better every day, attending the weekly worship of Jesus with the same posse of believers, can seem good and right while simultaneously circular and never “accomplishing” anything. And that feeling is ordinary.
The mystery of the life hid with Christ is that it is in precisely those ordinary functions and habits that muscles and
reflexes are being formed awaiting the IT moment of a missional serving opportunity or a sharing situation that calls out of the believer the extraordinary Holy Ghost fueled capabilities. And “suddenly” you’re IN the flow using your gifting AND developed preparations. Not for your stardom on the court, diamond or pitch and not for your wealth and fame of a multi-platinum recording but rather for the glory and renown of the only One worthy of that attention. It’s just that the glory and renown was being discovered and understood in those ordinary, quiet and endless moments.
God’s work in us, by the blood of Jesus, through the guidance of the Holy Ghost takes time and moments. And the resulting life-long change is far from ordinary.
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