Deeper…

It’s a cry we hear a lot in the young adult world. People leave churches because of it. They start small groups seeking it. They funnel their expectations into their relationships, work, and experiences. We want depth.

We want to go deeper in our intimacy with others. We’re not satisfied with “fine” as an answer to the question, “How are you doing?” We want to know, and to be known. Further, we want our experiences, right down to our vacations, to be deeper. We don’t want the typical amusement park variety vacation; no, we would rather camp in the wilderness on the brink of survival. Or bungee jump. Or hang glide. And in the spiritual realm, we want the same depth. The problem is I don’t think we know exactly what we are asking for.

I know I don’t. What does it mean to go deeper? Does it mean we want teaching that is rooted in Greek and Hebrew and goes beyond the “how-to-have-a-better-life” stuff we find in a lot of churches? Does it mean that we don’t want anyone to preach at all, that we would rather discover things for ourselves? Does it mean that we want exclusively verse-by-verse teaching rather than topical stuff? Maybe it means that, and maybe it means something more.

For my part, I think it means I want to feel, and not just know. For example, we know that in John 11 Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. But what about the other people in the story? How did Mary and Martha feel when Jesus didn’t come immediately to help their brother? How did they respond when Lazarus died and they were left to grieve? And how did Jesus feel upon seeing their grief, the grief that in some mysterious way He had brought on them by His inaction?

Or take the Psalms. There’s a lot of feeling in there. What was going through the Psalmist’s life when he wrote, “Why do the righteous suffer?” I think that is deep to me because it communicates something I believe God continually tries to do through His interactions with people in His Word—connect every part of them. Make them whole people. People that are engaged emotionally, intellectually, and even physically with Him.

To me, part of the journey toward depth involves going beyond the intellect and emotionally connecting with a passage. And one of the primary ways I believe we do that is by being unafraid to ask the difficult questions of a text. Questions that might seem to contradict our assumptions about our faith. Questions that lead us down a path of anxiety. But questions that ultimately connect the parts of who we are to God and make us whole people.

So let’s go deeper. Let’s connect ourselves to God. Let’s be unafraid to engage Him with our whole selves.