Intensity

Some things in life are intense. Storms, sunsets, bright shining sunbeams breaking through the clouds. Massive waves, blustery gales or tornadoes. They can be intensely good moments of beauty and awe and majesty or intensely bad moments of destruction and devastation.

How is this reflected spiritually? What does a high intensity spiritual moment look or feel like? High emotion or hearing from God? Feeling the Holy Spirit? Being close to God? Mountaintop moments where heaven seems close enough to touch, like Elijah’s experience discussed in this blog last week. Maybe it is also true that intensely bad times of life also draw us close to God. Times when we are not in control and cannot cope so look to a higher power for help and answers.

But what about times of low intensity? Grey skies and drizzle, when life is just a bit meh. What do we do with times of spiritual low intensity? When we don’t really feel, experience or hear God?

Here are a few suggestions, but it is clear there is no silver bullet!

• Keep on turning up. Keep praying or seeking God, practicing spiritual disciplines, meeting in community.

• Habits help. Regular spiritual practices, like seeking God outside can be built into everyday life. Like a regular habit of going to the gym even in times of low intensity, spiritual habits help us keep going.

• Be honest! The book of Psalms in the Bible is full of incredibly high and low intensity moments. Some bits are brutal. Using the Psalms to pray and reflect feelings can be really powerful.

• Find friends to walk with. Friends can help carry us through times of low intensity.

• Remember that although God can seem distant, He can actually be completely present. Read this from Henri Nouwen for more: https://henrinouwen.org/meditations/gods-absence-and-presence/ 

I guess the key is to cling to God in high and low intensity moments.