Growing our Friendship with God through the Spiritual Discipline of Relinquishment
How can we cultivate our friendship with God? Is friendship simply a gift of God that we can receive and enjoy, or does it require the vigorous application of various spiritual and physical exercises? In this paper, I will argue that cultivating our friendship with God requires relinquishment from a “grasping spirit” and reception of his lavish love as a response to his unconditional, first love for us.
Friendship starts with God is possible because he first offers his unconditional love for us. In order to experience this friendship, we need to learn to relinquish the “grasping spirit” of whatever holds our soul more than God. Then, we need equally important to receive God’s lavish love with open hands.
Cindy (chuckling): Hey Mark, why are you limping, did you get out of bed with the wrong leg?
Mark: No way, but yesterday a friend of mine took out me for a workout at his favorite gym. He is a buddy builder and showed me some exciting exercises on how to build up my leg muscles. I felt rather awkward and less excited because I rather watch bodybuilding on television. Now my legs and stiff and hurt! I remember the big sign with bold red letters at the entrance of the gym: No pain, No gain! For me, workouts just like spiritual disciplines have a negative connotation. I associate them with “obedience, constraint, self-denial, hardship, sacrifice, and martyrdom.”[1] I have a similar view as James Houston, the founding principal of Regent College, who admitted thinking that “spiritual exercise is something that needed to be worked at, like running or vaulting.” But, he was never good at sports and so for years he felt useless and guilty, because of his lack of progress in developing and maintaining spiritual disciplines, especially concerning prayer.[2]
Cindy: Once, after he gave a talk I walked up to him, took all my courage, and asked him how I could grow in my relationship to God as a person being fond of spiritual exercises. He looked at me and then replied, “Dear girl, it is not spiritual disciplines that help you grow in Christ; it is friendship with Him which helps you.”
Friendship: the undeserved grace of God’s unconditional love
Mark: I would agree. For me, friendship means receiving and responding to the love of another person. “God demonstrated his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). God takes the initiative and chooses to love those who do not deserve to be loved—the disinterested, the ungodly and even his enemies. We all ignore or reject his love. But that does not change God’s love for us. God’s love is always there for us, even while we are ignorant, cold, or rebellious against him. Gordon Smith captures and expresses especially well the essence of God’s love for us, because “there is nothing we can do to make God love us more, for the full extent of God’s love was shown to us when we were God’s enemies. God loves us. We cannot earn this love, manipulate this love or make God love us more or in any way make ourselves more loveable. Nothing can make this love increase; we are already loved to the full.” [3]
God fully loves us and takes the initiative to share the covenant of love and friendship with us. God knows and calls us by our name, delights in us, and takes pleasure and joy in each of us, just because of his goodness and love and not because of anything that we have accomplished or of who we are.[4]
Cindy: How is God’s love revealed to us? How can we know or experience the depth of his love for us?
Mark: Firstly, Rom. 5:8 refers to a historical event, Christ’s death on the cross. This relates to our intellect, understanding, conviction, and faith. This knowledge gives us confidence and assurance of our salvation on the day of judgment. Secondly, and just as critically, Rom 5:5 speaks about how God poured out his love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. This results in an “affective, subjective, and experimental awareness of his love.”[5] Through the work of the Spirit we experience God’s abundant and generous love as the “anchor and inner strength of our lives.”[6] Brother Lawrence, how did you encounter God, intellectually or effectively?
Brother Lawrence: God touched me affectionately in the depths of my inner being. At age 18, I saw a tree in the winter, stripped of its leaves, and imagined how they soon would reappear, followed by flowers and fruit. Looking at the tree gave me a profound insight into God’s providence that had never been erased from his soul and gave me a deep, steadfast love for God.”[7] Even now, nearly fifty-eight years later, this vision of God’s love and provision is still so vivid for me, that I am just writing a letter to comfort a nun in her suffering. I urge her to look at “God [who] is the Father of the afflicted, always ready to come to our aid. He loves us infinitely more than we think.”[8]
Cindy: Thank you Brother Lawrence for sharing this story with us. When I look outside my office, I see a magnolia tree covered with tender blossoms like a fluffy white blanket. Indeed, of ender, white peals with their pink hair is a symbol of pure, gentle, and overwhelming love. But, Mark let me ask you an important question. You talked about the affectionate and subjective love of God for us. Do you know about God’s love on an intellectual level, or do you experience the beauty of his love personally within you?
Mark (reluctantly): I have often heard preaching about it. I know the truth of this promise. I believe it, I pray in mind to receive this love and I praise God for his abundant love. But, I have to admit that I rarely feel affectionate love God. I know about the love of God in my mind, but I cannot say that I am in love with God.
Cindy: Thank you for being so honest, that really takes courage! Many Christians face the same issue. They talk about an abstract concept of God’s love rather than loving God intimately. It seems that it takes a long time for the love of God not only to touch our intellect, but also our heart. “Today the heart of God is an open wound of love,” writes Richard Foster. God aches over our distance, grieves about our forgetfulness, and weeps over our obsessions with manyness. God invites us “to come home, to come home where we belong, to come home to that for which we were created.”[9]
Relinquishing a “grasping spirit”
The reality of our modern life is that we do not know anymore how to come home. In our way are many roadblocks. Worries about our future, painful hurts, and memories of the past, regrets about decisions we made or that others made for us, and addictive behaviors cast long shadows over our lives. To remove such roadblocks, a long tradition of spiritual practices evolved. These disciplines are not about flexing our spiritual muscles. “God has given us the disciplines of the spiritual life as a means of receiving his grace. The Disciplines allow us to place ourselves before God so that he can transform us.”[10]
Dallas Willard defines it as spiritual discipline practices that “help us withdraw from total dependence on the merely human or natural (and in that precise sense to mortify the “flesh,” kill it off, let it die) and to depend also on the ultimate reality, which is God and his kingdom.”[11] For example, memorizing and meditating on scripture helps us for God’s word and kingdom to become the order and power of our mind and our life. Spiritual disciplines also are helpful to form new habits.
Brother Lawrence: In the monastery, we had many different spiritual disciplines. But often, they did not seem to help me. For many years, I felt deep regrets about my past, especially about the years I squandered as a soldier in the Thirty-Year War. I often lamented, “too late have I loved you!” “How much did I lack concern for you, my God during my early years?[12] As a soldier, I had seen so much looting, cruel violence, and atrocities. Regrets for the past filled my heart. For years, I could simply not believe that God forgave and loved me. Darkness filled my aching heart and for years I was convinced that I was damned.[13] I suffered tremendously and nobody was able to help me. I was always worried, but God graciously showed me that he continues to love me. Experiencing such times of God’s presence and provisions gave me a glimpse of hope and faith in God’s goodness. The tension between faith in God’s unconditional love and my many worries and regrets tore me apart.
Finally, I accepted the fact that I might spend my whole life suffering from these troubles and anxieties. I relinquished my expectations of how God should demonstrate his power in my life. I surrendered my control. It was not a hopeless and bitter resignation, but a conscious step of faith in God’s goodness, hope in his incomprehensible power, and trust in his perfect timing.
The result was amazing because we can only experience friendship with God if we consciously live in the present time. The here and now this is the only place where our life and God’s presence intersect. Have you experienced such times of tension between your faith and life’s reality?
Mark: Sighing, yes, I have. Actually, more than expected. My father died due to a heart attack when I was a teenager, relationships broke apart, and I did not receive the promotion that I have strived so hard to obtain or the global vice president position that I coveted.
Cindy: My parents tried to keep me out of trouble as a teenager so that I could fully focus on my studies. I graduated from one of the best universities in my province and worked successfully in as an HR manager recruiting dozens of highly talented staff. I was completely taken by surprise and shattered when my parents got divorced. For months, I walked for hours after work pouring out to God my pain, bitterness, anger, shame, and confusion. I meditated often about Jesus’ struggle in Gethsemane, who begged the Father with tears to take away if possible the cup of suffering in this unparalleled struggle and expression of relinquishment. Jesus’ struggle went on long into the night. Three times, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” (Mt. 26:36).
During this time, I read that in the school of Gethsemane, “Jesus shows us a more excellent way. The way of helplessness. The way of abandonment. The way of relinquishment…. to fight for the will of God is not difficult … until it comes at the cross-purposes with our will. Then, the lines are drawn. The debate begins.” [14] On the one hand, we have faith in God’s goodness. On the other hand, we feel self-pity, the desire to be in control, and the keen longing to avoid pain. I struggled to yield to God’s higher authority. Relinquishment is not fatalism. “God is inviting us deeper in and higher up. There is training in righteousness, transforming power and new joys, and deeper intimacy.”[15] Relinquishment as an expression of our trust in God brings us a priceless treasure, “the crucifixion of the will, “Relinquishment is death to self-life and releases new power and energy because “it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:19-20).
Receiving the lavish love of God with open hands
Mark: Sociologists state that trusting self-disclosure and communicated empathy are the noted components of intimacy. Friendship “at all levels is built upon generous sharing rather than skeptical evaluation.”[16]
When I lost my father, it took me nearly a year until I could pray honestly again. In the beginning, I knew in my intellect and mind that God continuously loves me, but my emotions taught me a different story. I felt in limbo. Relational and financial turmoil cast deep shadows upon us. We tried to rent another place because we had to move out of our work-supplied apartment. God provided a new home for us when we nearly despaired because we could not find anything that was affordable for a window with four children. This miracle of God’s provision for us soothed my aching heart. I felt his empathy. At times, when I cried during sleepless nights longing for a father to guide me and to help me carry my many worries, I felt his presence, compassion, and empathy. God became my heavenly Father to me.
Brother Lawrence: Something similar happened to me. When I surrendered and relinquished my hope, dreams, and desire for control, the totally unexpected happened. When I gave up everything, I found myself changed all at once. And my soul, until that time always in turmoil, experienced a deep inner peace as if it had found its center and place of rest.[17] This joy, peace, and contentment exceeded everything I could ever imagined.
Mark: A grateful and joyful heart transforms how we view everything in life. It “releases us from being controlled by how good or how bad things are. Through gratitude, we gain a God-sized view of life.”[18]Houston hits the nail on its head when he argues, “The purpose of the Christian life is not to fill our heads with doctrine, but to awaken us to a spiritual quality of life that excites, energizes, and enriches us” with a genuine love for God, for ourselves, and for others.[19] As it takes conscious effort to relinquish, it takes courage, hope, and faith to wait with joy and relaxation how God will respond to our faith expressed in letting go of whatever hinders us to follow him.
Cindy: Often, God gives us what we could never imagine, new hope, deeper love or even the resurrection of our dreams. I find it very touching how Jesus accepted and received love from his closest friends, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus during a dinner given to his honor after he raised Lazarus from death (John 12:1-8). For Jesus, who had “nowhere to lay his head,” (Mt. 8:20) their friendship really was a precious gift. Lazarus reclined at the table, while Martha served. The friends tended to his needs and attended to who he was. As he faced the horror and agony of death on the cross, “he stepped out of the circus of being hunted by the authorities and into the garden of friendship’s embrace.”[20] Suddenly, “Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume” (John 12:3).
Mark: The quantity of nard is so great that the entire house is filled with its fragrance which underscores the extravagance of her gift. However, women were not supposed to let down their hair in public, and the only one who saw a woman’s hair was her husband.
Cindy: Mary breaks the established rules. She does not care about the judgment and criticism of others. She is free as she only notices what her beloved friend and master, Jesus, feels and desires. She offers everything that she has, her most treasured perfume as a gift pouring it over Jesus’ feet. Her face is glowing with love and joy as she abandons and humbles herself, tenderly drying Jesus’ feet with her long, open hair. Maybe she shyly kisses his feet and then whispers into Jesus’ ear, “This is my way to show my love for you.” Her gift, her action, and her countenance all are vivid expressions of her overflowing heart of deepest love and friendship for Jesus.
Mark: Jesus accepts Mary’s outrageous gift of love and friendship. He defends her and stands up for her when Judas criticizes her and complains about the waste of this expensive perfume. Jesus cherishes her and the family’s friendship. He invites all of us into his friendship calling us his “friends.” Being called by name is a “true confirmation of who we are and are to be.”[21] Because of this friendship, we have “received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” (Rom. 8:15).[22]
The wonderful news about practicing relinquishment is “that it frees us from a grasping spirit. We relinquish the things that have a stronger grip on our soul than God—be it possessions, social standing, family ties, friendship, or bodily needs.”[23] But God never wants the void that opens up when we relinquish things to remain empty. As we learned to wait on God, he gives graces beyond our imaginations, moments of feeling his intense friendship and closeness. And a major element in this training is “waiting for God to move, not leaping ahead and taking things into our own hands. Out of this waiting experience there comes a form of character that is priceless before God”, a character that is empowered by freedom, joy, and contentment. [24]
Cindy: In conclusion, when Dr. Huston told me, “Dear girl, it is not spiritual disciplines which help you grow in Christ; it is friendship with Him which helps you,” I thought, “Yes, it is not a spiritual discipline that brings me into the presence of God, it is friendship that let me encounter Him by his grace. As a response to this grace. I respond with faith letting go of whatever holds me back. As I practice relinquishment, God invites me into a deeper level of his presence and friendship and invites me to receive with open hands and desire his lavish love and friendship.
Bibliography
Banks, Robert, and R. Paul Stevens, eds. The Complete Book of Everyday Christianity: A Comprehensive Guide of Following Christ in Every Aspect of Life. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1997.
Foster, Richard J. Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth. 20th anniversary ed., 3rd rev. ed. [San Francisco]: HarperSanFrancisco, 1998.
———. Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home. 1st ed. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992.
Houston, James M. The Transforming Power of Prayer: Deepening Your Friendship with God. Colorado Springs, Colo.: NavPress, 1996.
Jeremias, Joachim. The Prayers of Jesus. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978.
Lawrence of the Resurrection, Brother. Writings and Conversations on the Practice of the Presence of God. Edited by Conrad De Meester. Translated by Salvatore Sciurba. Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, 1994.
Phillips, Susan S. The Cultivated Life: From Ceaseless Striving to Receiving Joy. Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Books, 2015. Smith, Gordon T. The Voice of Jesus: Discernment, Prayer, and the Witness of the Spirit. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2003.
Stevens, R. Paul, and Alvin Ung. Taking Your Soul to Work: Overcoming the Nine Deadly Sins of the Workplace. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub., 2010.
Wallace, Catherine M. For Fidelity: How Intimacy and Commitment Enrich Our Lives. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Willard, Dallas. The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God. 1st ed. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1998.
References:
[1] Robert Banks and R. Paul Stevens, eds., The Complete Book of Everyday Christianity: A Comprehensive Guide of Following Christ in Every Aspect of Life (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2011), 292.
[2] James M. Houston, The Transforming Power of Prayer: Deepening Your Friendship with God (Colorado Springs, Colo.: NavPress, 1996),9.
[3] Gordon T. Smith, The Voice of Jesus : Discernment, Prayer, and the Witness of the Spirit (Downers Grove, Ill. : InterVarsity Press, 2003), 76.
[4] Ibid., 78.
[5] Ibid., 80.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection, Writings and Conversations on the Practice of the Presence of God, ed. Conrad De Meester, trans. Salvatore Sciurba (Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, 1994) CN1,97.
[8] Ibid., L14:100.
[9] Richard J. Foster, Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home, 1st ed. (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992), 1.
[10] Richard J. Foster, Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth, 20th anniversary ed., 3rd rev. ed. ([San Francisco]: HarperSanFrancisco, 1998), 7.
[11] Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God, 1st ed. (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1998), 353.
[12] Lawrence of the Resurrection, Writings and Conversations on the Practice of the Presence of God CN1,97.
[13] Ibid., CN2:12.
[14] Foster, Prayer, 50.
[15] Ibid., 52.
[16] Catherine M. Wallace, For Fidelity: How Intimacy and Commitment Enrich Our Lives (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, ), 112.
[17] Lawrence of the Resurrection, Writings and Conversations, L2, 57.
[18] R. Paul Stevens and Alvin Ung, Taking Your Soul to Work: Overcoming the Nine Deadly Sins of the Workplace (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub., 2010), 130.
[19] Houston, The Transforming Power of Prayer, 138.
[20] Susan S. Phillips, The Cultivated Life: From Ceaseless Striving to Receiving Joy (Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Books, 2015), 177.
[21] Phillips, 188.
[22] Joachim Jeremias argues that "here there is something quite new, absolutely new-the word abba.” He further claims, and has made famous in doing so, that Jesus' use of abba parallels the way children addressed their fathers or father-figures (Joachim Jeremias, The Prayers of Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978), 98.)
[23] Stevens and Ung, Taking Your Soul to Work, 140.
[24] Willard, The Divine Conspiracy, 250.
