The Spiritual Journey

It’s okay to question God

Having faith does not mean that we don’t question God. God is not a dictator demanding that we blindly follow his orders. Rather, as Jesus tells us when he teaches his disciples how to pray, God is our heavenly father (Matthew 6:9). As such, he loves us and wants the best for us, but he ultimately leaves it up to us to choose. 

When God told Moses to tell the Pharaoh to free his people, Moses questioned him (Exodus 3-4). The prophet Jeremiah questioned God about why he allows evil men to prosper and faithless men to be comfortable (Jeremiah 12). The Psalms are filled with questions to God about why he seems to hide from us and to have forsaken us (Psalm 10 & 22). Even Jesus, in the Garden of Gethsemane before the crucifixion says to God, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me (Matthew 26:39)” before conceding to God’s will. 

It is okay to question God, to be reluctant, and to be hesitant to follow his will. You are not alone in this if you do. Even while God asks us to be obedient and faithful to his word, he is not asking that we be mindless automatons who do not think for ourselves. He doesn’t want robot servants. God wants a relationship with us and relationships require communication.

God wants to hear from us. He wants us to confide in him, to tell him we are reluctant, afraid, or even angry. And while we may not change his mind, he will always listen. 

I once heard someone ask the question, “What if the only things God knows about you are what you tell him?” Ask yourself this next time you pray, and then invite God into your heart. Tell him how you feel. Tell him what worries you, what frustrates you, and what upsets you. He wants to know. He wants to help you and comfort you. 

Faith, then, is not acting without fear, without questions, and without resistance. Faith is doing God’s will in spite of these things and trusting that it will be alright. But if you are afraid, if you have questions, and if you are feeling resistant to what it seems like God is calling you to do, talk to him. 

God wants nothing more than to have a relationship with you, but he will not force himself upon you. “Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you (Psalm 55:22)… [He] will never let you down; he’ll never let you be pushed past your limit (1 Corinthians 10:13-18).”

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox.  

Our primary purpose

On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, I was working at a bank as a floating teller. As a floating teller, I traveled from branch to branch to fill in as needed. On this particular day, I was working in one of the Annapolis branches and I had a doctor’s appointment scheduled at lunchtime, so I was going to be leaving work early. 

As we set up the branch, getting all of our cash drawers ready for when the doors opened to the public, we saw the news that a plane had just crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. We were all shocked and not quite sure what to do, but it was time to open. Then, just after we opened the doors, the news came in that another plane hit the World Trade Center and we all sensed that the world as we knew it had just changed forever. 

There was a haunting sense of concern and confusion throughout the branch as we did our best to do our jobs as usual, but as the towers collapsed, we all just wanted to go home. I tried to call the doctor’s office to confirm my appointment, but no one answered the phones. I soon realized that, whether the doctor’s office was open or not, I still had an appointment, I still wanted to go home, and this was my chance to do so. So, when it was time for me to go to the doctor, I left work as planned and went home instead. 

At home were my two roommates, both older than me but also very good friends of mine. In fact, we are still friends to this day and stay in touch often. We briefly discussed what had happened and kept our eyes on the news. As the day went on and the initial shock wore off, the realness of it all started to sink in. 

That evening, like every other Tuesday night at that time in my life, we had a meeting to attend in a church basement. Every week a bunch of us gathered together to discuss our lives, our relationship with God, and the spiritual experiences we had each had, through which we shared a common bond. We met regularly, and still do in a different forum, so that others who may be interested in what we have to offer may find us and a way to change their lives. 

As was our custom, we gathered, had some coffee or tea, talked for an hour, said a prayer, and then began to part ways. Before we left, however, one of the members of our group pointed out that no one, not a single person, had spoken of or even alluded to the events of that morning in our meeting. In spite of the severity and gravity of the event, it simply never came up, and the reason it never came up was because that was not what we were there for. 

We knew our purpose for being together, which was to carry the message of the profound change that had taken place in our lives after we gave our lives to God, cleaned up our pasts, and then shared this good news freely with others. We were not there to talk about current events, no matter how tragic. For that hour, the only thing that mattered was that we share with each other and whoever else wanted to listen, what our lives were like, the spiritual transformation we had experienced, the process through which we experienced that transformation, and what our lives were like as the result of that transformation, and, as this gentleman pointed out, we stuck to that primary purpose, even on what is now infamously known as 9/11. 

I think about this experience and the lesson it offers quite often. If I know my purpose in life or in specific relationships or situations, and I stick to that purpose, I am much less likely to get caught up in all of the other things going on in life that either don’t concern me or that I cannot do anything about. This is not the same as apathy, however. I care a lot about a lot of things. Rather, it is about purpose and effectiveness. 

If, on that day, we had allowed the events of 9/11 to seep into our gathering, we would not have been able to do the work we were there to do. It would have made us less effective. And, the work we were there to do was and is extremely important. It literally changed my life and the lives of many others. By talking about the events of 9/11, we would not have been talking about God and spiritual transformation, and that would have been a shame. 

I have found that this principle carries over quite well into other aspects of my life. For example, when I am with my family, if I focus on my family and not on current events or politics, I am much more useful to them and we enjoy our time together more fully. When I’m at work and my attention is on the work itself and on my relationships with my coworkers, as opposed to gossip or personal opinions for example, I not only get more work done, but it is also much more satisfying and fulfilling to be at work in general. Likewise, when I’m at jiu-jitsu, my primary purpose is to teach or practice jiu-jitsu, and when I’m at church my primary purpose is to worship and praise God. 

In every aspect of my life, if I can define my purpose for being there and give my attention to that purpose without being distracted by extraneous issues that I have no control or influence over, my life is better and I am able to serve others more effectively. Of course, there is a time and place for current events, politics, etc. and for having an opinion on these things. There are even people whose purpose and profession it is to do so. However, I find that when I adhere to my life’s primary purpose, which is to love and serve God and to love and serve my fellows, I don’t actually have much time or desire to get caught up in those things or to drag them into places they don’t belong. 

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox. 

Driving in the moment

I’m old enough to remember driving without a GPS. In fact, when I started driving, computer programs like MapQuest and the like did not yet exist, so we couldn’t just type our location and destination into a computer to print out our route. We simply had to know where we were going. If we couldn’t figure it out, we had use a map or ask for directions. 

As a teenager, I don’t even think I wrote directions down. If I didn’t know how to get where I was going, I’d ask someone and then I would just go. If I got lost, I would either find my way or I would ask for help, usually by calling someone from a payphone to guide me in the right direction. Once I went somewhere, especially if it was somewhere local, without even trying, I could get there again from memory. 

When I traveled through different states, I would pick up the state map at a welcome center or a rest stop and stuff it in my glovebox in case I needed it. For years, I traveled up and down the east coast visiting family with nothing more than my memory, a set of handwritten directions, and a handful of free state maps. My friend and I even traveled to the deep south multiple times a year for blues festivals, putting tens of thousands of miles on my car and, except on a few rare occasions in new places, almost never got lost. 

This all changed when I became a commercial coffee-equipment repair-technician fixing espresso machines and such in and around Washington DC. I was only on the job for a few days when I realized I was in over my head. I had to travel from store to store fixing coffee equipment, in and out of the city, and time was of the essence. 

Now, I was driving for a living in an unfamiliar and confusing place, and especially if I wanted to get home at a decent hour, I couldn’t afford to get lost. GPS units had been out for a while at this point – I remember my father showing me the one he had – but they were still very expensive. After driving in circles between DC and Arlington, VA one day for about an hour trying to figure out where I was going, I finally broke down and made the investment. 

That was nearly twenty years ago and I have been using a GPS in one capacity or another ever since. I’ve been through several dashboard or windshield mounted units, but now it’s simply an app on my phone. Specifically, I use an app called Waze these days because it offers free, crowdsourced traffic, police, and hazard updates which are updated in real time. 

Waze is great and I am sure that has helped me avoid many hours worth of traffic jams, as well as tickets from police speed traps. For this reason, I have found myself using it even when I know where I am going and how to get there. I realized recently, however, that this convenience does not come without its cost. 

At some point in recent years, I started having anxiety about being stuck in traffic, in tunnels, and in any other situation I feel like I can’t easily get out of. It’s something I’ve been working through in therapy and also with my prayer and meditation practice. In spite of having made an amazing amount of progress in this area, I still have moments here and there when my anxiousness gets the best of me. 

One such incident happened a month or so ago when we were meeting some friends in the Baltimore for dinner. In order to get where we were going, we had to go through the Harbor Tunnel and, having never been to this particular restaurant before, I had Waze up on my phone to tell me where to go. It was getting late, it was dark, and I was exhausted from a particularly long week. 

As we approached the tunnel, I began getting anxious. Recognizing whet was happening, I started to think through the situation a bit in an attempt to overcome this feeling that was welling up inside me. Then, the thought came to me, “Is God anxious about driving through tunnels?” 

What this really meant, at least in my mind, was, “What part of you is anxious about driving through the tunnel? Is it the part of you where God resides or is it something else?” I then said a prayer asking God to give me the courage to get through this moment and he did. My fear began to fade, I drove through the tunnel, and we got where we were going. 

After a nice dinner with friends, we got in the car, and I began driving home. As we approached the Harbor Tunnel this time, I could see on Waze that there was traffic building up inside the tunnel and, because of this, the average speed in the tunnel at that time was around 20mph. I immediately panicked and pulled off the highway onto a side street. 

I don’t know what it is, but the thought of being trapped in traffic in the tunnel was simply too much for me and I decided to find a different way to get home. Waze rerouted me and I ended up driving through the city, eventually finding myself entering the Fort McHenry Tunnel which had no traffic backing up in it. This unnecessary detour added at least thirty minutes to my drive home, not to mention what it did to my dignity. 

Over the next few days, I stared to notice a pattern, however. Everywhere I went, I put Waze on to get there. If it showed delays due to traffic, hazards, or whatever, I would start to get anxious. This happened even when I wasn’t in a hurry. 

Then it occurred to me that I was doing this to myself. I was causing myself unnecessary stress by using Waze to look into the future and then obsessing about problems I didn’t even have yet. I was using my GPS to take me out of the moment and it was messing with my peace. 

So I decided to try an experiment. For the foreseeable future, I would go old school. I would stop using Waze, or any other GPS, to get to places I knew how to get to. If I was worried about traffic, I would simply have to leave earlier to account for it, but other than some initial GPS withdrawal, a funny thing happened. I stopped worrying about what was up ahead, and I started focusing on what was in front of me. 

My GPS was taking me out of the moment. It allowed me to abdicate responsibility for my timeliness and even my speed, and, instead of using it as a tool, I had started relying on it to make decisions for me. I was serving my GPS more than my GPS was serving me, and it was distracting me from being present to what was actually going on around me. 

I’m not blaming Waze for my anxiety. Anxiety is a complex, multifaceted issue. However, one of my main anxiety triggers is projecting too far into the future. I have a very strong imagination and when I predict the future, it’s always the apocalypse. I am, therefore, happier and more at peace living in the present moment whenever I can. As silly as it may seem, in addition to my meditation and mindfulness practices, driving without a GPS unless I truly need it is just one small way I can help myself do that.

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox. 

With practice and grace

The task of a person called to live a contemplative life is to notice things, to observe God in everyday occurrences, in mundane interactions, and in the places people normally do not look for God. But if God is, isn’t God in everything? Like Adam and Eve in the garden after eating the forbidden fruit, isn’t it we who are hiding, not God? 

The call to contemplation begins as a whisper. It’s a fleeting glimpse into eternity that leaves us wanting more. In a moment, God catches us off guard and grabs our attention. He pulls back the veil and we get to see what he sees, and feel what he feels. But as quickly as he reveals himself to us, he withdraws, leaving us full and empty at the same time. 

In what feels like his absence, we long for his presence. We begin to sense, to know, that nothing less than perfect union with perfect God is going to be enough. And yet there is something in the way. We can’t quite get there no matter how much we want to. 

God is always present, constantly pouring himself out, in and through us, but we are not always present to and for him. We have to practice. Awareness takes practice. Consciousness takes practice. Stillness takes practice.

As we practice, as we awaken to God’s presence, God’s presence begins to awaken within us. More and more often, we start to feel him acting through us, we begin to see him in our life as it unfolds before us, and we start to see and hear him in and through others. Over time, with practice and grace, God-consciousness becomes the rule, not the exception. 

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox. 

The heartache of the spiritual path

The spiritual life does not save us from heartache or suffering. It opens us up to experience life more fully. By choosing to live with an open heart, we are choosing both joy and sadness, pleasure and pain, connection and heartbreak. We get it all. 

Whether we know it or not, when we step onto the spiritual path, we are making a decision to feel everything, to experience everything. As a spiritual director once told me, “Unfortunately, we do not get to selectively numb. We can feel everything or nothing.” Openness is a package deal.

But it’s hard. Living with an open heart is hard. Love is hard. People we care about pass away, some betray or abandon us, and others disappoint us and let us down. And, in spite of this, we have to keep going. 

People who were on the path before us, who once led, guided, and accompanied us, they sometimes fall off or walk away, or they may simply stop seeking. They stop growing. Likewise, people we entered onto this journey along side, or met along the way, may not stay with us for the long haul. We are lucky if they do, but chances are they won’t. 

Quite often what feels like a parallel path of lifelong companionship turns out to be only a brief meeting at a crossroads. Even the deepest connections, connections that feel eternal, may not last but a moment before we are pulled by God or self in different directions. And parting hurts. 

If we are dedicated to this path, however, if we have chosen to love and seek God above all else, we must keep going. For those of us who long so deeply for divine connection with the infinite and eternal source of all things that nothing else will suffice, we must continue on the path even, or perhaps especially, when it gets lonely. We must walk in faith with our broken hearts toward the one who heals all wounds. 

But it’s not going to be easy. Easy was never the promise anyway. It’s going to be real. It’s going to be true. It’s going to be meaningful. It’s going to be rewarding. It’s going to be fulfilling. But it’s not going to be easy. 

This hardened world will break our fragile hearts, but as the late Leonard Cohen said, “That’s how the light gets in.” 

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox.