The Pursuit of God

174

The Pursuit of God

Finally, reading spiritual classics is similar to choosing friends.While Christians are commanded to love all people, we all have specific people whom we consider friends. 23 Friendships may be formed around similar interests, similar life experiences, or simply “clicking” with another person. Human finitude means we cannot be friends with everyone. Similarly, we will find ourselves connecting more with some authors or classics and less with others. We will “click” with some on a deeper level than others. This is normal, and when we find spiritual classics that edify us, we should spend extra time with them. Just as friendships are deepened when we invest intentional time in them, so our devotional life will be deepened by spending extended time with our favorite spiritual classics. Spiritual Classics and Soul Care I (Isaiah) am a relatively capable do-it-yourselfer who likes to complete my own home improvement projects. Sometimes, the project required is above my level of experience—like when my foot fell through our ceiling and made a hole above our furnace. To fix the ceiling, we needed to disassemble the furnace. I was uncomfortable doing that job on my own, so one of our friends with repair experience helped me and taught me how to fix the ceiling. Spiritual classics work the same way. When a brother or sister comes to us with a need for soul care, we may need expert assistance. We can point them to a “soul improvement expert” like John Owen or Julian of

23 For a discussion of Christian friendship, see Aelred of Rievaulx, Spiritual Friendship: Learning to Be Friends with God and One Another , ed. Hank Voss, Sacred Roots Spiritual Classics 3 (Wichita, KS: The Urban Ministry Institute, 2022).