Having our faith get stuck in a RUT happens to most Christians at some point. The RUT does not have to be running off life’s road. In many cases, the RUT is simply falling into spiritual routines that are nothing more than transactions. You know…read the Bible some. Pray a little. Go to church occasionally. And living with a golden-rule-attitude is good enough.
It’s tempting to view spiritual ruts as “phases” that will pass. But it is much more serious than that. Falling into a spiritual RUT has us living a TRANSACTIONAL faith that crowds out living a TRANSFORMATIONAL faith.
If we go too long with a transactional faith–and never reach the point where God is transforming us in his image–our faith is not fully ACTIVATED to reach its full potential.
How do we slip into a spiritual rut?
The worldly aspects of life become more important than God. The superficial and immediate become more important than God. The alluring and pleasurable become more important than God. After all: “We only live once and, besides, we’ve got a mortgage to pay.”
We can easily get snagged by this rut because of course a shot of pleasure would feel great right now!
So how do we get out of a spiritual rut?
It’s easy to think that SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINE will pop us out of these ruts in our faith walk. But while spiritual discipline is an imperative, it can become transactional—doing the things Christians are supposed to do. Read the Bible, pray, go to church, and the rest.
Yes, those things are faith tentpoles. But it takes more than discipline to get out of a spiritual rut because discipline leans more toward the transactional. The best way out of a spiritual rut is making sure our discipline to do the spiritual TRANSACTIONS of our faith walk produce spiritual TRANSFORMATION in our heart. Shift our focus from the world to God. And have us using a CAPITAL B to spell our belief that God is in control and we are not.
I ask God to keep me on the look-out for signs that my faith is stuck in a rut. To alert me when my belief that he is in control starts to waver from CAPITAL B BELIEF to lower-case b belief.
WHAT ABOUT YOU?
Would You Know If Your Faith Was STUCK IN A RUT?
“Don’t remember the former things, neither consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing; now shall it spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.” Isaiah 43:18-19
