Living In A Spiritually Flat World

In Psalm 80, the psalmist cried out to the Lord to save his nation and "to restore and smile on us." The sentiments expressed in the psalm echoes what many of us feel when our prayers do not seem to be answered. Some have turned away from God in such times even though it is a time when they need God even more.

The psalmist lived in a time when people believed that the world is flat - the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. The earth was the centre of the universe with the sun. moon and stars moving around it. Living in such a world, the people were not able to travel far beyond their homes. It was also inconceivable to them that one can travel round the world.

Their spiritual perspective is that of heaven being above and hell as below. Living with such a perspective, people believe that they need to please God or God would turn away from them. They needed to plead for God to return to them.

However, in our modern world, we have a totally different perspective. We know that the earth is round and that it is revolving and moving round the sun. When the part of the earth is turned away from the sun, there is the darkness of night. When it turns back to face the sun, it has the light of the morning sun. We are aware that we are not the centre of the universe but our earth is but a tiny ball in an universe that we find hard to imagine.

Such knowledge of our physical universe should move us from the concept of living in a "spiritually flat world" where God moves toward or away from us. When we turn away from God in our lives, we will encounter the dark night of our souls. Adverse circumstances, suffering as well as hedonistic pleasures in our lives tend to turn us away from God. It makes no difference to God whether we are turned towards Him or not - but it makes a big difference to us as it determines whether we will be able to have the love, joy and peace that God wants to give us.

The picture of God being in the centre of our lives can help us to understand the discipline of repentance. Repentance is not just feeling sorry for our wrongdoings but a recognition of our need for God and our need to keep turning back to God as the lover of our souls. Difficulties, problems and suffering can become our springs for joy and peace if we use them to seek the grace and love of our Heavenly Father. Such times can be times for the reframing of our minds, the renovation of our hearts and the revival of our souls.

We will experience the joy unspeakable and the peace that surpasses all human understanding when we move from living in a spiritually flat world with magical religious practices to a spiritual world in which Christ is in us our hope of glory. In an Upper Room Reflection, I was reminded that "the heart’s single greatest desire is to listen attentively to the voice of God speaking through scripture, nature, daily events, and the kind of reflection that leads to expanding self-knowledge." It is only when we live such a life that our hearts will have room for God.

So let us cultivate the discipline of solitude, meditating on God's Word and learning to listen to the voice of our Shepherd in prayer.