The 9 Arts of Spiritual Conversations

by Mary Schaller

  The Art of Loving is the all-encompassing attitude that pervades each of the other practices. Love binds all facets of our relationships together. This idea is reinforced in Colossians 3:14: “Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony” (NLT). The Art of Loving is the thread woven throughout the other practices, holding them together. If we do not love when we notice, pray, listen, and ask questions, our attempts will fail. If we do not love when we welcome people, facilitate well, serve with others, and share God’s story, our attempts will crumble. Love is the glue. Loving people, especially those who are different from us, can be difficult. But when God’s love is poured out in us, it overflows into the lives of everyone around us. Noticing people, engaging them in conversation, asking meaningful questions, listening empathetically, serving with them, and inviting them into relationship are not only powerful expressions of God’s love; they are also dependent on his love in order to be authentic, meaningful, and compelling.

  God Loves Us

  Love describes God. He is loving; he acts on his love; he loves each of us. But at the core, love is God’s identity. It is who he is, and he cannot be something other than love. The apostle John described God this way in 1 John 4:16: “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.” God expresses his identity by pouring out his love on people. I always enjoy the beautiful image of God’s love adapted from a thousand-year-old Jewish poem and captured in the third stanza of the hymn “The Love of God.” It reminds me of the immensity of his love:

  Could we with ink the ocean fill,

  And were the skies of parchment made,

  Were every stalk on earth a quill,

  And every man a scribe by trade;

  To write the love of God above

  Would drain the ocean dry;

  Nor could the scroll contain the whole,

  Though stretched from sky to sky.

  Oh, love of God, how rich and pure!

  How measureless and strong!

  It shall forevermore endure—

  The saints’ and angels’ song.[50]

  These lyrics provide an artistic expression of God’s love as immeasurable. God’s love is not scarce or about to run out. He is not stingy with his love, parceling it out in tiny bits. He is not controlling with his love, holding it back to punish us. God is an ardent and exuberant lover. He first communicated love through his creation—a vibrant sunset, a warm puppy, a juicy apple. But God’s incredible expression of sacrificial love for us culminated in the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus. John quoted Jesus himself when he wrote, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13).

  Scripture uses a variety of metaphors to paint a picture of God’s love, such as a parent’s love for a child or a husband’s love for his wife. Though helpful, each metaphor falls short of fully capturing the vastness of God’s love. Any way you look at it, his love is extreme. This sacrificial, boundless, and deep love is worth investigating, understanding, experiencing, and sharing. And it is this incredible love that Paul implores us to grasp in Ephesians 3:18-19: “May you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully” (NLT).

  It is this love that we are compelled to share with those who do not yet know him. Because we have experienced this lavish love, we are motivated to spread it in tangible ways to people in our world who are burdened with guilt and judgment, without God and without hope.

  We Love because He Loves Us

  My nutritional intake provides fuel for my body. If I take in calories without using them, my body accumulates that fuel as fat, and I grow less and less healthy. Similarly, my soul is not designed to take in the spiritual nutrition of God’s love without then turning it outward in loving action toward others. But I cannot expect to love others purely if I am not being nourished by God’s love. I must tap into the source of love—in fact, into Love himself. That is the essence of the Great Commandment in Matthew 22:36-38.

  God doesn’t command me to try harder to get my cold heart to love more. Instead, he invites me to have my heart transformed by loving him, so that love for others follows as the natural outflow. When a bucket is filled to overflowing and water keeps pouring in, the bucket doesn’t have to try to make everything around it get wet; it can’t help but spill all over whatever is nearby.

  If I truly appreciate God’s love, I increasingly love what he loves—other people, both those who are close to him and those who are separated from him. As a result, my focus realigns to include loving and caring for others as a way of life. Paul’s instruction in Galatians 5:13-14 reflects Jesus’ teaching: “Do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

  This is not a suggestion to take under advisement. Loving your neighbor is foundational to the Christian faith. What if Christians were known all over the world for this love?

  Despite our shortcomings, God is still madly in love with each of us. He considers us his treasure, his beloved children. He dotes over us as our loving heavenly Father. So what are we to do with this outlandish love from God? The answer is evident in 1 John 4:19: “We love because he first loved us.” Musician Aaron Niequist explains it this way in his song “Changed”:

  We have been blessed—

  now we’re going to be a blessing

  We have been loved—

  now we’re going to bring love

  We’ve been invited—

  We’re going to share the invitation

  We have been changed—

  to bring change[51]

  We are called to love the down-and-out and the up-and-coming, the wallflower and the gadfly, the atheist and the religious, our friend and our enemy. Jesus showed us how to do this. He was called a “friend of sinners” (Matthew 11:19).

  Love Pursues on Purpose

  When we talk about how we came to know Jesus, we often describe ourselves as “seekers” or “explorers,” as if our spiritual journey is all about us—that we are the ones who are active and God is out there passively waiting to be found (maybe even hiding). We may think that God is far off and disinterested or that he only cares about us if we initiate a relationship with him. But the truth is that God pursues each one of us. We are less the seekers and more the sought-after ones (Isaiah 62:12). God’s love is an active love; the thread running through Scripture reveals that God actively seeks us.

  From Adam and Eve to Abraham, from Moses to Ruth, from David to a virgin girl named Mary—God sought them out. He demonstrated his love personally to each of them while he worked in their lives to carry out his plan, motivated by love for the whole world. And then Jesus came from heaven to earth as God in the flesh:

  This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

  1 JOHN 4:9-10

  Jesus’ mission was “to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10). God has always earnestly sought his people. That is his nature. God pursues us intentionally and sacrificially, seeking us out because of his fervent love and deep desire for connection. God is the one initiating, the one who takes the first step, even if we are not aware of it. He longs for us to respond to his promptings and invitation—and to seek him in return.

  God has been wooing us to himself since the beginning. In The Sacred Romance, Brent Curtis and John Eldredge describe God as “the hero in love” and us as the “Beloved” or the “Pursued.”[52] Here’s how God’s story is described in The Message:

  Long before he laid down earth’s foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his lo
ve. Long, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. (What pleasure he took in planning this!) He wanted us to enter into the celebration of his lavish gift-giving by the hand of his beloved Son. . . . Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living.

  EPHESIANS 1:4-5, 11, MSG

  Long before the beginning of time, God had his eye on you and me as the focus of his love. And yet Psalm 14:2-3 reminds us that we do not reciprocate that interest: “The LORD looks down from heaven on the entire human race; he looks to see if anyone is truly wise, if anyone seeks God. But no, all have turned away” (NLT).

  In his book No Wonder They Call Him the Savior, Pastor Max Lucado uses a story about a runaway girl to describe God’s passionate pursuit of us:

  Longing to leave her poor Brazilian neighborhood, Christina wanted to see the world. Discontent with a home having only a pallet on the floor, . . . she dreamed of a better life in the city. One morning she slipped away, breaking her mother’s heart. Knowing what life on the streets would be like for her young, attractive daughter, Maria hurriedly packed to go find her. On her way to the bus stop she entered a drugstore to get one last thing. Pictures. She sat in the photograph booth, closed the curtain, and spent all she could on pictures of herself. With her purse full of small black-and-white photos, she boarded the next bus to Rio de Janeiro. Maria knew Christina had no way of earning money. . . . Maria began her search. Bars, hotels, nightclubs, any place with the reputation for street walkers or prostitutes. . . . And at each place she left her picture—taped on a bathroom mirror, tacked to a hotel bulletin board, fastened to a corner phone booth. And on the back of each photo she wrote a note. . . .

  It was a few weeks later that young Christina descended the hotel stairs. Her young face was tired. Her brown eyes no longer danced with youth but spoke of pain and fear. . . . Her dream had become a nightmare. A thousand times over she had longed to trade these countless beds for her secure pallet. . . . As she reached the bottom of the stairs, her eyes noticed a familiar face. . . . There on the lobby mirror was a small picture of her mother. Christina’s eyes burned and her throat tightened as she walked across the room and removed the small photo. Written on the back was this compelling invitation. “Whatever you have done, whatever you have become, it doesn’t matter. Please come home.” She did.[53]

  Like the Brazilian mother who pursued her daughter, our God lovingly pursues you as well as your friends, neighbors, colleagues, classmates, and relatives. He is the Shepherd who pursues the one lost sheep, and we can follow in his steps by proactively seeking out the people who are living desperate lives without him. We are called to notice with compassion, pray purposefully for people, initiate the conversation, reach a hand out, take the first step, listen patiently, extend an invitation, welcome warmly, and intentionally seek others out.

  Love Pursues with Sacrifice

  In the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and subsequent nuclear-plant meltdown in Japan, a massive cleanup of the hazardous site was required. A retired Japanese physicist invited other retired scientists to join him in offering their services to help clean up the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Within four months, four hundred men and women signed up. This “Skilled Veterans Corps” wanted to go in the place of young workers. In an effort to protect the younger generation from radioactive exposure, these individuals were willing to face perilous radiation levels.

  God’s love is expressed in an even more heroic sacrifice. Jesus, God the Son, left the comfort of heaven and the presence of the Father and became like us, willingly entering our contaminated world to save us from sin’s fallout.

  These days, the word love has lost its value. Saying we love someone, or even feeling kind thoughts about him or her, is not really love. Love may sometimes feel, but it always acts. “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

  That word demonstrates is important. God doesn’t just talk about love. He acts on it—with a huge sacrifice! He proves his love, not after we prove our worthiness but before. While we were still stuck in our sinful actions, he loved us enough to die for us. Today he offers his love to Muslims, Buddhists, atheists, hedonists, communists, terrorists, and anarchists. To your coworkers, relatives, neighbors, and classmates. To everyone who will come to him. His love says: “Whatever you have done—whatever you have become—it doesn’t matter. Please come home.”

  Loving People Who Are Different from You

  Action accompanies real love, but action can take very different forms as we interact with people unlike us. The apostle Paul gives us a clear description of the action of love in 1 Corinthians 13:

  Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

  1 CORINTHIANS 13:4-7

  In his book The Magnificent Defeat, theologian Frederick Buechner provides this perspective:

  The love for equals is a human thing—of friend for friend, brother for brother. It is to love what is loving and lovely. The world smiles. The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing—the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor, the sick, the failures, the unlovely. This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world. The love for the more fortunate is a rare thing—to love those who succeed where we fail, to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice, the love of the poor for the rich, of the black man for the white man. The world is always bewildered by its saints. And then there is the love for the enemy—love for the one who does not love you but mocks, threatens, and inflicts pain. The tortured’s love for the torturer. This is God’s love. It conquers the world.[54]

  It may be helpful to think about the five ways Buechner breaks down loving our neighbors. Loving our neighbors means loving those who are lovable, those who are like me, those less fortunate than I am, those more fortunate than I am, and also my enemies.

  Let’s face it—loving those who are lovable or who are like us can be much easier than loving someone different from us. I confess that my lifestyle insulates me from the poor and desperate. But rather than absolving me, God calls me to deliberately put myself in settings, neighborhoods, or social gatherings where I can get to know and love those who are not like me.

  I am sad to admit that I am more prone to judge, avoid, or ignore people less fortunate than I am. But Jesus challenges me to be generous with my time and resources to those in need—whether this is a person who is lacking basic necessities or a person who has plenty but is spiritually bankrupt. As followers of Jesus, we are called to love people across every economic, spiritual, and ethnic spectrum.

  Loving people more fortunate than we are is not easy either. How can we love the person who was promoted when we were overlooked; the person who is healthy when we are struggling with chronic pain; the person who scored higher than we did on the exam; or the person who has the newest clothing, technological device, or electronic gadget? How can we love people who look as if they have it all, and love them without judgment or critique? Only with God’s help will you and I be able to celebrate their good fortune without envy, jealousy, malice, or ulterior motive.

  Finally comes the most challenging and courageous love of all: loving your enemies. Picture Jesus speaking to the crowd: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you” (Luke 6:27-28). Are you kidding me? Jesus is asking us to love the people who do us harm? This command seems impossible to practice. Yet history records many stories of Jesus’ followers making the sacrifice to obey this teaching—martyrs through the centuries, Holocaust prisoners, underground church pastors in China, Muslim converts to Christ, and many others with less dramatic examples of this s
elf-sacrificial love. Author and speaker Bob Goff encourages us to “love everybody always. Start with the ones you don’t get.” That’s a less intimidating way to think about loving our enemies. Who are the people you just don’t get? This is an easier place to begin.

  Pastor Francis Chan challenges us: “There has to be more to our faith than friendliness, politeness, and even kindness. . . . True faith is loving a person after he has hurt you.”[55]

  Consider the story of Charles Carl Roberts IV. He was a milk truck driver who in October 2006 tied up and shot ten Amish schoolgirls between the ages of six and fourteen in their Pennsylvania classroom, killing five of them before turning the gun on himself. Shortly after the massacre, the same Amish community donated money to the gunman’s widow and said they wanted to forgive him. To the watching world, this kind of love elicits questions, curiosity, and amazement. It demands an explanation.

  Most of us don’t directly experience dramatic scenarios of tragedy and evil. But we do experience conflict and internal resistance when we engage in conversation with people whose beliefs or worldviews are in opposition to ours, especially if they are hostile to our views. We have a simple choice to make in these interactions. We can choose to love people with differing opinions, listen to them, and seek to understand—or we can devalue them, creating an enemy. Gabe Lyons states it clearly: “Followers of Christ in a pluralistic society must be willing and able to engage those they disagree with in constructive conversations. . . . How can we love someone we don’t know or understand?”[56]