By Mike Colaw
A number of years ago, after I had finished my undergraduate degree in philosophy and religion, I found myself in a sea of religious perspectives, wave after wave of authors and professors pushing their viewpoints. I felt like I was on a raft in a sea of spiritual ideologies, barely staying afloat. In fact, one night I looked at my nightstand and there was a huge stack of books from the latest theologians. Some were pushing social justice, some pushing spiritual reformation and some just seemingly angry with everyone, all adamant that the other authors were completely wrong. As I looked at my stack of books, my heart began to sink a bit. Was this really the culmination of thousands of years of men searching for metaphysical answers? Humanity has so twisted the Christian religion for political gain and social control when its purest motive was to give meaning and purpose, all while ushering in the nature of Jesus.
As I looked at my stack of books, there was one I noticed at the bottom of the pile, one I hadn’t spent much time in over the last few months, the Bible. I had spent hours and hours pouring through literature about this book, even reading books by authors attacking others for their interpretations of the Bible. I decided to push these aside and dive into the New Testament. Overwhelmed with the tsunami of spiritual literature, I needed somewhere to throw my anchor. There, tucked away in that old dusty book, I found how spirituality should be lived out:
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.” (Matthew 23:23 ESV)
I found how we are to extrapolate this in our world:
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” (Galatians 5:22-23 ESV)
I found where, or should I say whom, I could sink my life’s anchor into:
“Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’ ” (John 14:6 ESV)
There is no doubt rejuvenation for me began with anchoring my soul and eliminating the noise of too many voices. I want to challenge you to read through the book of John in the Bible, pay attention to who Jesus is and his nature as he interacts with people in really difficult situations. Though I respect and at times even enjoy all the spiritual “experts” out there, this spring we should get back to the basics.