God Will Meet YouSample

Where Are We?

Interested in the intersection of faith, politics, and culture? So is Bekah McNee — which you can easily tell by reading her many impressive articles in Christianity Today, The San Antonio Current, the Public Justice Review, and more. Come join our conversation as Bekah discusses her favorite ways to connect with God.

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I grew up with a very prescriptive spiritual practice in which devotions were best done every day — without fail — in the morning, in the silence, and with a Bible in one hand and a journal in the other. Even prayer followed a format. Since then, I’ve been desperate for a spiritual practice more responsive to my personhood. I wanted to know if God would show up in my messy, inconsistent, changing inner life.

So, my spiritual practice right now is pulling from a variety of places and utilizing a lot of different traditions. But the common thread — and maybe my number one spiritual tool right now—is a question: Where are we?

I got the idea from my kids’ emotions chart, borrowed from the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. We have a chart in our house with four quadrants — blue for sad, red for mad, green for calm, and yellow for happy — and in each quadrant are tons of words that might further describe their feelings.

Each person in the family has a pin that we place ourselves in. During intense interactions or confusing moments, it helps to pinpoint what we’re feeling on the chart so that we can respond to each other accordingly.

So before I pick up a dynamic equivalence translation of the Bible, pop in AirPods for some white noise, go for my walk, put on my boxing gloves, or start journaling, I ask myself, “Where are we?” I don’t try to force myself to be where I’m not, even if that means putting off a conversation with God until later.

If my mind is racing too fast, then I trust God to guide my work until I can get to a place where I can focus. If I am full of anxiety about the work I need to get done, meditating is actually going to be futile, so that I might journal. If I’m devastated by the news, I go for a walk. Being responsive to where I am has both made my spiritual practice more effective and reminded me that God is responsive to my emotions. I ask myself where I am so that God can meet me there.

—Bekah McNeel, journalist, as told to Rapt Interviews