Spiritual PathwaysSample

Created Different

As a preacher, I sometimes poll the congregation by asking for a show of hands and posing a few questions like these:

1. Who here is pro-green olive vs. anti-green olive?
2. Do you prefer Coke or Pepsi?
3. Do you love cilantro or hate cilantro?
4. Do you cheer for the Toronto Maple Leafs or are you a fool?

And so on. Generally, these types of questions are split roughly down the middle, with half the crowd preferring one option and half voting the other.

The point isn’t really to find out who likes what or which option was better (although the pro-green olive, pro-Coke, pro-cilantro, and pro-Leafs people are obviously walking in God’s good truth), but rather to demonstrate a well-known reality:

We are all wired differently.

Not right or wrong, just different.

I think green olives are little salty/bitter bursts of heavenly flavor, but they make my wife want to vomit. I think cilantro elevates any dish with freshness and proves that God is real, but many others have told me it tastes like rotting soap in their mouths.

God made us so different!

Now, stretch the idea to a much more important question:

What is the best way to connect with God?

People have diverse answers: prayer, worship, Scripture, Church, solitude, etc. Yet we often treat the answer as if there was only one way to look at it:

The best way to connect with God is the way I do it.

But we are not all the same. People feel closest to God in a variety of different activities. This week, we want to explore this idea. Prayer and Scripture are a given that we should all engage in, but we want to explore other ways to connect as well.

And while we would want to clearly affirm that there is one path to God, and that is through Jesus Christ (John 14:4-6), we would also want to affirm that there are many ways that we can connect with God through Jesus.

A young David couldn’t fight Goliath wearing Saul’s armor because it simply didn’t work for him; a sling and some stones were much more comfortable for David (1 Samuel 17:38-40).

Likewise, men are all wired differently, and we all have ways of connecting more comfortably and naturally with God.

This week, we will explore a number of these different “spiritual pathways,” being encouraged to unapologetically pursue the Lord in ways that draw us closer to Him and perhaps finding new ways to connect as well.

Prayer: Father, thank You for how You have created me. I want to walk closer with You. Help me learn how to do this. Amen.

Reflection: Where in your life do you typically feel closest to God?