Practical Obstacles to Oneness with God

Here are 4 things that get in the way of our oneness with God

In the previous post, I talked about the theological causes for our feeling distant from God (distrust, disobedience, fear, and shame). But there are several practical causes related to them that crop up in our daily lives. Here are four of the most prominent.

Hurry

We live in a bustling world. Each of us stands amidst the noise and movement like a pigeon on a city street, cooing about the weather and the food scraps we’ve found. So much is going on around us, and we’re more aware of it than we’ve ever been before.

What does this lead to? Frantic pigeons, snapping our heads in every direction. Because we’re aware of too much, we’re trying to do too much. Trying to do too much leads to our doing too many things with inadequate attention. In trying to do more too quickly, we do less. This is hurry.

Hurry is a result of saying “yes” to everything. But we don’t see this until it’s too late. John Mark Comer writes, “Every yes is a thousand nos. Every activity we give our time to is a thousand other activities we can’t give our time to.”

We ignore this. We act instead as if every yes is a yes—and. “Can I do social media?” Yes—and pour a good chunk of time into reading my Bible.” “Can I keep my head in a Netflix series for a bit? Yes—and still find a way to concentrate in prayer.”Yes—ands are corrosive to spiritual oneness. Why? As Mary Oliver put it, “Attention is the beginning of devotion.”Our attention is limited becauseweare limited. The more we give away, the less we have. And oneness with God requires our attention, especially in Scripture reading and prayer. But aren’t these the first things to go when we feel busy? Why is it that “the things that are truly life-giving for your soul are the first to go rather than your first go to?”Maybe it’s because we’re not fully convinced that these things are life-giving. Maybe, like Adam and Eve, we doubt that what God says about keeping his words and being one with him (John 14:23) is really true.

That is a huge problem. Let me put this more starkly, as Comer did. “Hurry is a form of violence on the soul.”

Think about that: violence on the soul. Hurry isn’t just a lifestyle decision; it’s a corrosive disease. It eats away at your attention, which is one of the most precious gifts you can give to God. In fact, without regularly giving that gift, your oneness with him will suffer. Oneness with God is a relationship, and relationships require time and attention. Time and attention are the oxygen of love; without them, relationships are bound to wither.

Do you struggle with hurry? I certainly do. I have to practice saying no to more things so that I can say yes to my relationship with the Lord.

Comer developed a little checklist of symptoms for what he called “hurry sickness.”

If you put a check mark next to a few of these, then hurry needs to be addressed with more nos if you want deeper oneness with God.

• Irritability

• Hypersensitivity

• Restlessness

• Workaholism (or just non-stop activity)

• Emotional numbness

• Out-of-order priorities

• Lack of care for your body

• Escapist behaviors

• Slippage of spiritual disciplines

• Isolation

Hurry is actually related to all of the theological causes for our lack of oneness. It’s related to distrust, for example, because our hurry often suggests that we trust our own abilities more than God’s truth. Think about it. Do you and I really live as if the words of God are our primary nutrition (Deut. 8:3; Matt. 4; John 4:34)? Or do we trust that going after a list of other things is really going to be more fulfilling? I’m as guilty as everyone else. I struggle each day in little ways to trust that God really knows what’s best for my soul: oneness with him.

Distraction

Distraction is a fractured window; it’s hard to see anything through it with detail. The division of the whole means less depth, less attention, less care. You can see how that would be a problem for oneness with God.

And if hurry is, as Comer put it, a form of violence on the soul, then distraction is the open wound that refuses to heal. It keeps hurting us, but in a measure small enough to keep our focus elsewhere—our broken, divided focus. Distraction hurts us just enough to keep us trapped, to cage our souls so that movement and growth become impossible. Don’t you and I want to get out of the cage?

If hurry is a form of violence on the soul, then distraction is the open wound that refuses to heal.

Some weeks ago, we had a groundhog living under our shed. We called someone out to trap it humanely. He set up cages around the groundhog’s entrance, and we caught him the next day. But we left the traps there for another day just to make sure there weren’t others. The following morning I found a rabbit inside one of the cages.

I had been taught how to open the cage in case something like this happened, so I went out to set it free. When I got closer, my heart sank. I love animals and hate to see them in pain. The rabbit was flooded with fear that poured out of his big, black eyes. As I got closer, he kept darting back and forth frantically, searching for an exit in the presence of a lumbering giant. Its nose was bleeding from trying to push open the locked door. I opened the door as quickly as I could, and the rabbit shot through the grass like a bullet, jumping into the open expanse of freedom.

You and I are like that rabbit. Distraction is our cage. Only we seem less frantic about breaking free. In fact, we live as if there were no cage. But there is.

A 2019 study found that the average American checks his phone once every ten minutes.

That’s 96 times a day. That was a 20% increase from a similar survey two years before. So, it’s likely gotten worse. One person claimed it’s up to 262 checks a day in 2021. That’s once every five minutes or so. Let’s work with that figure for now.

Once every five minutes, Americans stop whatever they’re doing to check their phone, to look into a virtual window that offers access to other worlds. Once every five minutes, we’re leaving where we are to go somewhere we cannot be. That’s unprecedented in human history. Unprecedented. And unprecedented things usually make us blind to their effects.

How is this distraction affecting our oneness? For starters, how many times do you check in with God each day? Once in the morning, an occasional thought throughout the day, maybe a prayer if things are hard and loved ones are hurting, and then that ritualized before-dinner prayer. So, maybe five times a day, give or take. Five vs. 262. The bigger number eats the smaller number.

How can we possibly expect to grow in our oneness with God if we give it so little attention, if we speak to God so infrequently, if we listen to his voice in Scripture so fleetingly? We can’t. Let me say it again. We can’t. Distraction does not allow devotion. You choose one or the other. Actually, you keep choosing one or the other all throughout the day.

Distraction, deep down, is also linked to distrust. It says, “This thing will be better and more entertaining than what God offers.” That doesn’t seem like distrust, but it is. Our hearts go where we trust. Our time goes to our treasures. Do we trust that oneness with God is the most fulfilling thing in the universe? If we do, we will act on that trust. If we don’t, we’ll go elsewhere.

Lesser Loves

Not all lights are created equal. Some are dim and sapped of gold. Others glow and draw a crowd. Others are steady and silent, lighting just enough of their surroundings to provide a humble home. But not every humble home is a good home. Not every light demands devotion. And there is only one that deserves it. We might call it the Father light (James 1:17).

Loves are like lights, aren’t they? They enter the wide pupils of the soul. They attract. They ask for entrance, and we give it to them. The trouble is that oneness with God requires devotion to the Father light, the greatest light, the North Star of spirits. When we follow other lights, oneness fades. That’s because of how we’ve been made. We’re wicks crafted for one flame, wound and ready for his passion, the spark of his self-giving love, to bury itself in our dry fibers and ignite us.

But receiving that light takes patience, silence, and faith. It’s a matter not just of wanting, but of waiting. And as we wait, other lights drift before us, other loves beckoning in the black.

Anything you like can be a light: a feeling, an activity, a person. The trouble isn’t the expanse of lights. It’s our reordering of the spiritual solar system to make lesser lights the center of the universe, to take good things and make them god things. Whenever we do this—and we’re tempted every day—oneness with God wanes. Remember what we saw in the previous chapter: oneness with God needs to take precedence over oneness with others, and over our passion for other things.

Lies

The last impediment to our oneness with God is as common as it is ancient: lies. Many lies keep us from uniting with the God who is truth (John 14:6). But I’ll focus on the greatest one: the lie that the Father, Son, and Spirit are not real, are not present, and thus can’t be communed with (for more on this, see The Great Lie). Few Christians would admit to believing this lie, but many of us live as if it were true. Just ask yourself how often you talk to God and whether you really believe that someone is listening. We act as if we’re in a room by ourselves. Just because we speak doesn’t mean we believe we’re communicating. Speech must be accompanied by belief.

Living as if God were not present is an ancient problem. Could Eve had taken fruit from the forbidden tree if she truly believed that God was present, that he was with her? God’s invisibility is a cloak for his omnipresence. And that cloak has always served as a test of our belief. Will we truly live as if God was present, as if he was always in the room, beneath us, behind us, and before us?

The lie that God is not present may very well be the most potent lie that’s ever existed. And it’s plain how this lie would block our oneness with God. You can’t be one with someone you’re not sure is here.

Again, this lie is so powerful, in part because we don’t want to admit that we believe it. But honesty is the door to healing. If we don’t start by opening that door, we’ll never address the problem.

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One with God launches on 6.20.2023. Can wait to get it out there!