I love the quote from St. Irenaeus that he wrote way back in 185 AD, “the glory of God is man fully alive”. But what if you don’t feel fully alive. There are those days, times or seasons, for whatever reason, when I feel as if I’m on spiritual life support. Here are four surefire ways get a spiritual recharge and help you to come alive in Christ.
· Befriend someone who is different from you.
· Change your routine.
· Take a risk.
· Go and serve in a unfamiliar place
Befriend someone who is different than you.
I know there is a desire to be around people who tend to look, talk, and act just like me. Most churches are assemblies of like people for just that reason. There is a sense of comfort and safety hanging with people of like interests and backgrounds. The problem with that is, it is difficult to grow when you are around people who think just like you. You won’t ever change much and you won’t have much chance of changing anyone else. So you pretty much stay the same. Instead of hanging with people who are just like you, befriend someone who has different interests, or someone from another culture. Find a church that has a diversity of people instead of one whose congregation think and worship just like you. Or better yet, reach out to someone who is not a Christian? Spend some time with people who don’t go to church, who don’t think like you and make an impact on them for Christ.
One recent ministry opportunity that really made me come alive spiritually was with the Amigo program at Lackland Air Force base. This program connected families in San Antonio with a student from another country who was in San Antonio for 6 months to study English. Many of the students were from Iraq or former Soviet countries. Many were Muslims. These men and women had little to no opportunity to get off the base and experience San Antonio. Families would commit to meeting them through Amigo and provide a way for the foreign student to experience life off of the base. Barbara and I met a wonderful man from Iraq who was serving in the Iraq army and had been put in prison while serving in the Iraq army under Saddam Hussein. We had dinner with him in restaurants several times and even had him over for dinner. We got to share about our faith in Christ and hear his many fascinating stories. It was really exciting and we left our meetings with him fully charged and felt fully alive in Christ. We still hear from him from time to time. He had an impact on us and I know we impacted his life also.
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