I began to rise early in the morning for prayer and to read the Bible. I began to take monthly retreats to a bed-and-breakfast in the mountains for a more lengthy immersion in order to read devotional works, pray, experience silence and solitude, and to journal. I entered into a two-year, intense mentoring relationship with a man who had many more years on me in terms of age, marriage and ministry.
There was more, but you get the idea: I was going to be a public and private worshiper; I was going to be a student of the Bible for my talks and for my soul; I was going to pray for others to hear, and for an audience of one.
I hope you hear my heart on this. It’s not to boast, it’s to confess. I have to do these to survive. Maybe you do too. And again, this was not something anyone had warned me about, told me about, pulled me aside and counseled me about.
Interestingly, at the same time my “awakening” occurred, I was part of a breakfast meeting with the great British pastor and author, John Stott. He had been touring various American seminaries, and someone asked him for his observations. He did not suggest anything about a diminishing state of orthodoxy, a lack of biblical preaching or diminished standards of academic excellence.
Instead, he said two things that still stand out to me to this day: First, he said he wanted to tell everyone to “cheer up.” Seminaries all seemed so serious, so gloomy, so joyless.
Coming from a Brit, that was particularly interesting.
But second, he said that there seemed to be a real lack of spiritual formation; that the seminaries did not seem to be doing much to help people know how to grow spiritually, to care for themselves spiritually or to develop themselves spiritually.
I know it was true for me.
So here’s a spiritual truth that should never be forgotten: No one will ever own your spiritual life but you.
And if you are a leader, that ownership better run deep.
