The Interior Life
Unanswered prayer can endlessly grind at a person's faith in ways few other things can. How many times have we earnestly prayed, sometimes fasted, and genuinely believed what we asked for was reasonable and permissible within Our Lord's will?
Whatever you ask in prayer, if you believe, you will receive.
~ Jesus in Matthew 21:22
Step one, ask in prayer: check. Step two, believe: check. Then, as we patiently wait in step three, the passage of time perpetually proves that our belief has not resulted in receipt—at least in the wrappings we expected.
Over these past four years, I've been forthright about one of the most confounding trials of my life: the loss of my career. My reflection has become: Is this a case of unanswered prayer or something much deeper?
As the final flames of the glorious Jesus Movement consumed the waning acres of souls in 1978, Jesus revealed Himself to me at age 15. (I'll give you time to do the math to determine I'm now 61). By that stage of my life, I had already held three jobs and was never out of work my entire adult life. Then came January 2021, when I was forced to lay off my team and close down my technology consulting firm.
I've been either unemployed or underemployed ever since.
In addition to meeting the demands of my career, I was driven to accomplish a unique array of outlandish goals. I was a standup comic for seven years, served in various church leadership roles, and climbed Mt. Rainier and Denali (Sorry, Donald, I'm sticking with the original Athabaskan name, which means The Great One.)
I completed five Ironman Triathlons, including two Hawaii World Championships, back in the days when I shaved my legs and wore a speedo in public to not get laughed at. I also raced six marathons, including three sub-three-hour finishes in Boston and one in New York. By the time I switched to bike racing, it came so easily to me that I began coaching other athletes.
If you aren't tired yet, it was at this point in our lives, with two babies in tow, that Jill and I became church planters. We started with four families in our little living room and, less than three years later, launched our Sunday morning service. One year after that, I left the corporate world and became a full-time pastor.
It's true what they say: Church planting is the hardest thing you will ever do. And of all the struggles, victories, glory, and splits, my greatest lesson was this: Don't rush trying to become a real church. Or, as scripture says, despise not small beginnings. Those early years of breaking bread from house to house were humble and holy, bumbling and pure, and we didn't recognize how beautiful it was until it was in the rearview mirror.
Years later, I transitioned back into the business world, remained the Worship Leader in our church, and soon after founded my own business, The Denali Group, (not McKinley Group.)
After eight wildly successful and rewarding years of technology consulting, we now come full circle to where this piece starts: January 2021, when I lost it all. Strangely, this was also the same month I set up The Wine Patch and embarked on one more challenging pursuit.
I share all of this so you can learn more about my story and remind myself that I am proven capable of accomplishing audacious goals. So why am I stuck between steps two and three while my career is in the morgue?
The Interior Life
The mountains are my happy place. The White Mountains of New Hampshire are my happier place. And climbing those majestic peaks in winter is my happiest place. I recently went to my happiest place and consecrated it as time to be with the Lord.
Withdraw yourself from all unnecessary cares and business, that you may attend to the one thing necessary, the service of your soul and its union with God.
~ Thomas à Kempis (1380 - 1471)
I've been a Christian for nearly 50 years, yet I feel like a babe before Him in so many ways. The trials and suffering of these four years have wrought aching growth plates, signifying an impending growth spurt. But I'm not called in this season to grow taller, smarter, wiser, or stronger. This is a call to grow deeper: Union with God in the interior life.
As I look at scripture and contemplate things Jesus said, the true position of this relationship He describes is in. We tend to look up for God, but He is looking in. We close our eyes to look beyond, yet the place he is most passionate about is inside us — In the depths of who I am.
Author and speaker John Eldredge reminds us that the Old Testament representation of the Temple has been transformed and is now fulfilled as living temples—you and me.
Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
~ Paul's First Letter to the Believers in Corinth, 3:16
Eldredge continues. Just as the Jewish Temple had three primary areas, so do we have three primary modes of life: the Shallows, the Midlands, and the Depths.
Like the Temple's outer courts, where there is chaos, commotion, commerce, and clutter, we have the Shallows. In the Shallows, we unpredictably flit from thought to thought, distraction to distraction, fog to fog, similar to death-scrolling from Reel to Reel on YouTube.
The inner courts of the Temple, where the priestly duties were carried out, can be equated with the Midlands. This is where we handle and process life's cares: our worries, heartaches, desires, and longings. It's in these two strata that modern Western life is almost exclusively lived. As I wrestle like Jacob and wait like Joseph, I am struck with my demands that The Lord meet me in the Shallows or the Midlands.
When He seems far away, He may be already waiting inside.
The Holy of Holies was the sacred inner chamber deep within the Temple where the Ark of the Covenant rested. The Presence of Adonai dwelled in this rarely visited, deeply reverent place. Likewise and unimaginably, the Lord of the Universe has chosen to reside in the Depths of who we are. The Depths are where our true essence resides, and God's presence rests.
Enter the invitation of the interior life. Faced with my seemingly unanswered prayers asking to become an earner again, I have been stripped of every practice and discipline I formerly relied upon. These past months, I have found myself reading less, listening more, petitioning less, quieting more, and clenching less and opening more. As best I can, I detach from my dread and rest in sometimes unbearable silence, inviting The Trinity to renovate my interior world.
Wait, did he say The Trinity?
In
As I've written in earlier pieces, one of the most profound descriptions of the indescribable nature of The Trinity is perichoresis. Peri is the Greek word for around, surrounding, and where we get circle. Think, perimeter or periphery. Choresis is the Greek word for movement, a going around, or dance. Think, choreography.
The Three-in-One essence of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit can be envisioned as a Circle Dance: A continual movement of the three Persons encircling one another in an unending, ever-increasing flow of pure light and love. And we are invited in.
When Elohim said, "Let us make man in our image," He breathed the breath of life in him. Jesus said if we hear a knock and open the door, He will come in and enjoy a meal with us. And the most extravagant and inexplicable prayer of all is found in John 17. Jesus prayed for us, almost giving us a glimpse of perichoresis:
May they be one just as you, Father, are in me, and I am in you. I pray that they will be in us . . . I in them and you in me, that they may be completely one.
Who can understand such a passage except to say: We are the answer to Jesus' prayer.
I can no longer avoid descending to the Depths with the excuse that I'm waiting for the mess in these outer courts to be cleaned up. These past few months, I have been spending extended time, like never before, quietly communing with God in the Holy of Holies, detaching from my worries, embracing union, and finding a mystery of movement in the rhythms of oneness.
This journey of the interior life is an invitation to us all.
What is it to be a Christian? It is to have Christ dwelling in us, to be united to Him, to be made one with Him.
~ St. John Chrysostom (c. 347–407)
——————
If my writing has blessed you, helped you, or even provoked you, please consider a donation to express your appreciation. Thank you!
