The Gap: Between What You Believe & What You Experience
Facing our faith and finding our souls
I want to have more conversations and read more books that feed my soul. I want to wonder in the mystery of our souls and their connection to God—our connection to God. I want to practice recognizing the holiness in each person. I spent so much time in a denomination that labored to precisely describe God, only to find an utter dearth of his Spirit in its leadership. And I’ve seen so many friends leave the faith over this. They’ve spent much of their lives striving to be the sort of Christian version of themselves they believed they were to be and discovered a bankruptcy of wonder, glory, intimacy, and…God. They let go of the hustle and are looking for meaning outside of the church.
Recently, I was interviewed by Michael John Cusick for his podcast, Restoring the Soul. It was one of my favorite conversations I’ve had about Saving Face. His questions were so penetrating and engaging. It didn’t feel like an interview at all.
That made me want to read his book, Sacred Attachment: Escaping Spiritual Exhaustion and Trusting in Divine Love, and now share it with you. Here is an excerpt:
Why is there such a gap between the promises of the gospel and the reality of our lives? Why has Christianity grown so distasteful to unbelievers and irrelevant to so many believers that they are walking away from the church or from faith altogether? Why do so many believers live with a secret sense of disappointment with their experience of the Christian faith?
Cusick’s book minds this gap between what we think we believe or not and what we experience. It’s a gap many are embarrassed to admit—what would it do to your faith to say it out loud? What we really want is not to merely talk about God or ascend to some measurable level of living the good, Christian life. What we really want is mystical. If we believe that we are spiritual beings, then Christianity is more than a doctrinal and even moral matter. What if we could experience a richer spiritual life? Cusick:
My suspicion is that for a large percentage of believers who are wrestling with whether Christianity is true, the primary concern is not the veracity of their Christian belief; it’s the reality of their Christian experience. The story of the gap is a source of confusion, disappointment, frustration, and pain. And far more common than we tend to realize.
What if we could talk about this in church in a way that helped us to experience God together? What if we weren’t judged for not being where we hoped to be in the faith? What if we could help one another imagine something different, but more real?
What if this gap is the very place where we are called to traverse? Cusick explains, “What seems like a contradiction is what I like to call Jesus-shaped spirituality.”
Cusick is a licensed therapist and spiritual director, and his professional knowledge and work informs the content of the book. I agree with Cusick that attachment theory and secure attachment affects how we receive and connect with God. But the book is far more vulnerable than it is pedantic. I don’t want to just summarize his book. I’d rather share some provocative questions that Sacred Attachment addresses.
Are you able to vulnerably receive love?
Where is “home” for your soul?
How does your body direct your spiritual life?
What is holiness and can you attain that now?
Do you recognize holiness in those around you?
How does shame block you from being known?
How can we experience God in his absence?
How is your imagination a pathway to knowing God? (Do you remember a time when this was so and don’t you miss that?!)
Here are some questions I’ve been spending some time thinking about: Who are you without your achievements? Who are you without your wealth? Who are you without your job or your stellar reputation? Who do you find when you let go of your attachments?
I love that each chapter of Sacred Attachment ends with a blessing. I will close with my favorite one:
May you offer yourself kindness as you attend to the gap
between what you believe and what you experience.
May you have clarity about the other way beyond ceaseless
striving and brokenness.
May you sense God’s invitation to explore the
contradictions within.
I remember being younger and feeling so compelled by the mystery of God and caught up in the wonder. I’m trying to pinpoint the reason for the shift into feeling like I needed more to “support” my faith. I think there were a few reasons: hearing some faith leaders talk about needing more than your feelings, hearing skepticism from people when I reached college age, and a personal desire to get to the meat of things.
For me, the experiences you describe (wonder, glory, intimacy) led me to want to understand Him MORE. I wanted teaching that tugged on those threads. But I kept going to church and getting the same vague messages that didn’t really dig in. People just wanted the surface feeling good parts, without digging. Then you’d turn the other way and find people very focused on the guard rails and definitions without any of the wonder.
I think I ended up just stuck in a place of craving more of the experience, but rooted in growth of my understanding - and I got neither. It’s refreshing to see others digging just like I was, and has renewed my determination!
I’ve often said that sanctification is the lifelong process of narrowing the gap between who we are in Christ (position) and how we experience transformation through Christ (practice) becoming more like Him in our relationships and lifestyle. Having said this I’ve found it too easy to lose the mystery, wonder, awe and intimacy with God. The head and the heart, our thinking and feelings oftentimes become disconnected and imbalanced in living out the reality of Christ-likeness. As a boomer I tend to think in linear terms of steps to take and processes to follow and then life itself blows it up in my face. The late Mike Yaconelli fleshes it out in his book, “Messy Spirituality”.