From Moses seeing the burning bush to Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, the Bible is full of stories of Christians experiencing spiritual highs. This feeling of extreme connectedness to God can drive Christians to hop from church to church in search of more exciting worship or to constantly seek an intensity of God’s presence in their lives. And those who exhibit these traits very likely are addicts, Jeanie Miley said.
For them, religion merges with entertainment which creates a spiritual thrill that must be continually chased, said Miley, a Houston-based author and retreat leader whose expertise includes spiritual growth and wholeness.
“Our culture seems to be drawn to that which gives us a buzz or helps us to escape,” said Miley, a member of River Oaks Baptist Church, Houston, Texas, where her husband serves as pastor. “That buzz distracts from emptiness, pain or boredom.”
Christians continually striving for the feeling they experienced at a key spiritual moment, or who church hop in search of the more inspiring preacher and worship likely have fallen into this category, she said. The same is true for many who become fixated on the Rapture and other end-times dramas.
It’s understandable that Christians want to seek that feeling of being spiritually connected or high, said Lisa Keane, clinical director at Pathways Professional Counseling.
“These times help fuel our relationship with the Lord and help remind us of who God is and what He has promised us,” Keane said. And there is nothing bad about such experiences.
“However, when these experiences become the thing individuals seek more than a daily, relational interaction with God, it often leaves them feeling disappointed or questioning their salvation,” she said.
Lucy Worley, central missions and prayer coordinator for Experience Life, a multisite church in West Texas, sensed something wasn’t right with her continual pursuit of spiritually intense experiences.
“For a considerable season of my life I thought something was wrong with me because I no longer felt the way I did when I first came to the Lord,” Worley wrote recently for Relevant, a magazine of faith and culture. “That ‘on fire’ feeling I always had as a new believer was suddenly impossible to attain.”
She feared that the absence of the feelings she had as a new Christian invalidated her faith.
“I had had some initial mountaintop experiences and I was now associating those intense emotions with a healthy relationship with God,” she wrote in her article, “Faith Isn’t All Mountaintop Moments.”
“I liked that mountain and I didn’t want to put in the effort of climbing a new one.”
But these mountaintop experiences must be interlocked with the truth of God’s Word, Keane said.
Subjective feelings
“We cannot have one without the other. Salvation is not a feeling. It is a fact. … Our feelings are often subjective and based on our beliefs or experiences. Scripture lays out promises and truths for us to cling to even when we do not ‘feel’ God,” she said.
It’s natural and healthy for Christians to long for a closer relationship with Jesus, Stephen Hall added, but they often try to meet the longing with intense religious experiences.
“When we chase after an ‘on-fire’ emotional feeling, we pursue the wrong thing,” said Hall, associate pastor at NorthPark Baptist Church, Trussville, who holds a doctor of ministry degree with an emphasis on spiritual formation. “Our pride gets in the way, leading us to think our spiritual high is evidence of our spiritual success.”
And if we search for that spiritual high by hopping from church to church, it can add to the struggle of pursuing a mature faith, he said.
“If we are not careful, we will place ourselves in seats of judgment during a church’s worship gathering. Instead of engaging the Lord in whatever is being sung or said, we debate the merit, quality or preference of the worship experience,” Hall said.
“By constantly comparing the insignificant preferences, we lose sight of the meaning of joining in corporate worship of Almighty God.”
Church hopping also can keep Christians from really diving into their sanctification process or pursuit of holiness, Keane said. Being a part of a local church is key to that process.
Take inventory
“I believe God knows we need people in our life to help confront us in our sins and to strive for His righteousness. … If all we are doing is seeking after an experience that makes us feel good without taking the hard, honest inventory of areas of sin in our life, we will not grow and our relationship with the Lord will be shallow or nonexistent,” she said.
“Church hopping keeps people on the surface and keeps individuals from developing the types of relationships that will lead to further sanctification.”
Miley notes that the non-mountaintop periods in a Christian’s life give them time to process their experiences and to remain open to where God is calling them next.
“God does come and get us through our questions and even through our doubts,” she said.
These “flatland” periods also serve as reminders that the spiritual life is one meant for living in society, with all the responsibilities that come with family and jobs, she said.
Keane seconded Miley, adding, “When you choose to avoid the lows or hard times in your life or spiritual walk, you will also be blunting the highs you could be experiencing.”
Keane uses David as an example of a Christ-follower who experienced spiritual mountaintops and valleys and everything in between. “[David] groans about how he is feeling afraid or alone (in one Psalm), yet the next Psalm communicates clearly that he knows God is with him even when that feeling is not present.”
At the end of the day, the journey of discovering God is what Christians should strive for, according to Hall.
“It’s easy to look down on people when you are on a mountaintop. But any seasoned hiker understands that valleys, meadows, ridges and peaks are all part of the journey.
“Our longing must be for the journey.”
(BNG contributed)
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