I Don't Care if You're "Saved" or Baptized (Part 1 of 2)

Honestly, I don’t. 
 
As a Spiritual Director, I’m looking and listening for spiritual “fruit” in your life rather than whether or not you’ve checked off or formalized any religious rituals or beliefs.
 
And while both can be meaningful, they are not requirements for relating to (& being loved by) the Sacred Presence.  In other words, your spiritual life happens with or without them.
 
While they can be meaningful, they can also be areas of spiritual wounding. 

Let me give examples from my own life because saying a “prayer of salvation” does not appeal to me for three reasons:

1. I never said it.  Even though I grew up in the church, I didn’t know there was a prayer to be "saved" until I was in high school. One day an adult youth leader asked me to name the day and time I invited Jesus into my heart and said the prayer of salvation.  I looked at her puzzled and said, “I don’t have a day or time because I've never known life without God.”  She looked puzzled and replied,  “You're the first person I have met that hasn't, but I can't deny that you follow Jesus."  That was the first time I felt like I needed to prove and defend my spiritual life.  
2. It can be manipulative.  In college, a few times I attended a Christian group’s "Noon Prayer." At the beginning, people would give “testimonies” on how many people they had shared “The 4 Spiritual Laws” with and whether or not it led to the prayer of salvation.  It was no surprised how the men always had stories of the number of women they had shared it with!  It made me sick to my stomach, feeling more like manipulation rather than salvation.  My last encounter with this group was a retreat. They loaded us in buses saying we were going door-to-door with an important spiritual survey.  I thought the survey was real, until at the first door, I watched how the leader used it as a doorway to presenting “The 4 Spiritual Laws”!  Same stomachache.  I sat on the bus the rest of the time, sickened by the manipulation in the name of “saving” people.  
3. It can create an unnecessary burden.  I will never forget my husband recounting his “salvation story” to me.  As a 2nd grader, he had been invited to Vacation Bible School held at a neighbor’s house.  At one point, they explained how a person would not go to heaven without asking Jesus into their heart.  They asked for a show of hands as to who had not done so.  Being scared out of his mind (why hadn't someone told him until now that he was not going to heaven?!), my husband raised his hand. One of the mothers took him by himself to the stairway and led him in saying the "prayer of salvation."  Right then, the weight of a fear & shame-based theology was put on his small shoulders that would be burdensome for years to come, including repetitively asking Jesus into his heart over and over just to make sure Jesus didn't leave!             

 
Maybe you have had a wounding experience around this as well.  If so, I am sorry. 
There is nothing “saving” or “sacred” in manipulating people into believing what you want them to believe (even if well-meaning, it is still manipulation!). 

Plus, it’s simply not creative. Jesus did not have one way of being with people and inviting them into freedom and wholeness.  Methods and "laws" often by-pass the sacredness of relationship by making people projects that need saving. 
 
Years ago, a woman once bemoaned in spiritual direction how she had tried to “save” her brother but feared he was not “saved” before he died.  I asked her tell me more about their relationship.  She told me about his disdain for God and the ways she had still loved him through the ups and downs of his life.   It was clear that she had loved him well and he knew it. Her kindness in caring for him, especially while he was dying, was evident. 

I looked at her and said, “Wow, I am amazed by your care for your brother!  You do know that the way you loved him means more to God (& your brother) than any of the beliefs you shared or any prayer he could’ve prayed.  Plus he had good reason not to pray it and he did not need to, you were the face of God for him and he loved you.”
 
I want to explore this a bit more next week.  But if you desire Spiritual Direction, know that you do not have anything to prove and I certainly do not want to manipulate or burden you.  Instead, I will listen to the ways you have been spiritually wounded.  And together, we will look for the fruit already present in your life, already waiting to be tasted and tended to.  It has nothing to do with whether or not you've said the right prayer or done the right ritual.  

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