It’s hard to think of a scarier question than this: What if you’re wrong?

What if you’re wrong about that investment? What if you’re wrong about that innocent-looking mole on your forearm? What if you’re wrong about which wire to clip first — the red one, the green one or the black one?

I had lunch recently with a good friend, and he’s going through an interesting time of transition. He’s in a pretty serious relationship, and, as that relationship continues to deepen, he’s starting to wonder about things like transitions. He’s very concerned to do God’s will, but he’s a little unsure about what God’s will is in this season of his life. Should he marry her? Should he stay in his current job? Should he buy a house? Should he buy a dog?

He has some ideas, but what if he’s wrong?

Knowing that I’ve recently agreed to be the Lead Pastor at a church in Texas, he asked me how I knew this was God’s will for me. The real question he wanted answered was, of course, “What if you’re wrong?”

See, lots of folks seem to think there’s just one viable option if you want to live in God’s will. There’s just one person for you. There’s only one job for you. There’s a right place to live, and any other place is the wrong place. You better pick well, because, well, what if you’re wrong? You’ll be outside of God’s will, and you don’t want that.

But what if we’re wrong about this whole idea that God’s will is narrow like that?

More importantly, what if we’re wrong about what God is like?

A.W. Tozer said, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us…. For this reason the gravest question before the Church is always God Himself, and the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like.”

Could it be that our misconceptions about God — about his character and nature and desire for our lives — is what really keeps us from following him?

What if God isn’t narrow and restrictive? What if God is a God of freedom and liberation? What if God is a God of empowerment and generosity? What if God isn’t cranky and isn’t walking around looking for an excuse to make life miserable for us?

If that were true, this question we’re talking about might not be scary after all; it might be hopeful. What if you’re wrong about God? What if he isn’t perpetually angry? What if we don’t have to walk on eggshells around him? What if we can rest and relax in his presence?

What if you’re wrong about the way this whole thing is supposed to work?

What do you think are some of the common misconceptions about God that might be keeping us from following him?

I spent some time over the weekend trying to think about what my life would be like if I just trusted Jesus as my Savior but not enough to let him be my Leader. Here’s a short list:

I would probably be cynical about church, and I probably wouldn’t believe that the Christian life actually works.

I would do everything I could to cover up the fact that I was spiritually empty, dry and unsatisfied.

I would be passive and apathetic.

I would have good intentions, but I would lack follow-through.

I would focus on my needs, my rights, my options.

I would arrange my life around my personal preferences.

I would rather be a spectator — observing meticulously (and frequently complaining) but never actually participating.

I would compartmentalize my life to make sure stuff in the church box stayed in the church box and didn’t bleed over into the work, home and leisure boxes.

I would become an expert at going through the motions, doing what is expected out of habit.

I would be barren, and it would bother me every once in a while — just a little.

I would be extremely frustrated, but I wouldn’t realize it’s because I’m serving two masters.

I would be proud of how self-sufficient and independent I am.

I would refuse to commit so I could keep my options open — just in case.

I would have no real clear direction or sense of purpose, drifting through life.

I would secretly hope that there could be more to it than what I’ve experienced.

Sound familiar? Sounds like a lot of people I know. This list didn’t take me long to put together at all — and the reason is because I’ve been there — learning but not doing, believing but not trusting.

Did I miss anything?

In a comment to yesterday’s post, Tammy made this confession:

Until I was desperate for HIM, He was just Savior, not Lord.

“Just Savior, not Lord.” That’s a sad but accurate and common description of Jesus for many of us. It’s also a terrible distortion of Jesus’ message as recorded for us in the Bible.

Nowhere in the Bible will you hear Jesus giving instructions on how to get into heaven or avoid hell. You won’t hear much from him in the way of instructions for salvation — at least not salvation as it’s come to be understood today.

What you will hear him talk a lot about is our need to enter and live in the kingdom of God. He understood that it’s in our best interests to follow his lead, rather than be led by our own misguided passions or (worse) some other fallen person’s agenda.

In other words, Jesus’ command was “Follow Me!” Salvation was understood to be a byproduct of that — a means to that end but not the end in itself.

This is, in my opinion, where we got off track: Presenting salvation as the goal allowed us to bypass any notion of actually doing what Jesus would have us do.

So, if you could put yourself inside the skin of a Christian who trusts Jesus as their Savior but not their Leader, what would your life be like?

It seems to me that a lot of people think following Jesus comes down to exterior compliance. Performance. Behavior.

We tend to equate discipleship with activities first. Attend this event. Participate in this program. Learn this material. Practice these five steps to maturity. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

But, in teaching folks to work, give, go, do, we’ve neglected the simple fact that this is not how Jesus taught people. This is, quite simply, one of the most frustrating things about Jesus: He rarely gave us an outright command. More often than not, Jesus told us how things are and expected us to internalize that thought and adjust our behavior accordingly.

Jesus taught people to follow him from the inside out.

In that order.

Adjust the inside, address the disorder of your heart and mind first. Then, with a new heart and a renewed mind, allow that internal reality to work its way out through your behavior.

The sad truth is, performance-driven discipleship has not produced courageous, healthy, self-starting followers. Instead, it’s created disillusionment and apathy.

The gospel must first be allowed to impact the inside of us — the self, the ego, the libido, the imagination, the ambition, the passion, the soul — what Gordon McDonald calls “the life below the waterline” — if it’s ever going to provide the lasting change it promises.

We must wean ourselves from this obsession with superficial, performance-based cosmetic changes and learn to follow Jesus again from the inside out if we want to be that city set on a hill like Jesus wants.

But how do we do that? And why is that so counter-intuitive?

We’ve talked about this before around here, but let’s re-visit that conversation.

Why do so many preachers fail to teach the way Jesus did? Why are sermons so full of tips on how to change your behavior but so empty when it comes to new ways of thinking?

When it’s all said and done, it all comes down to leadership. Show me your leader, and I can know an awful lot about you — even if your leader is yourself — which is what most of us prefer.

Clearly, one of the problems in our world today is a lack of real leadership. Strong, courageous, competent, visionary leaders are so few and far between they almost seem non-existent. And there may be some societal reasons for this. The biggest reason is probably the shortage of people willing to be followers.

We live in an age of 51% majorities. Increasingly, it would seem that public opinion polls determine policy. Politicians who are not leaders stick their fingers in the air to see which way the winds of public opinion are blowing on nearly every issue. It seems like this is what makes a person electable nowadays: their willingness to follow the lead of the people back home. Consequently, leaders have become followers, and followers have become leaders.

Should one of our elected officials suddenly sprout a spine and stand in opposition to one of our whims — even if it is the right thing to do — we’ll just run that person out of office at our earliest convenience.

This is not good. It’s created a state where leaders no longer trust their followers, and followers don’t trust their leaders. With a few rare exceptions, the only thing either side can be counted upon to do on any kind of consistent basis is to do what they feel is in their own best interests.

What is terribly alarming to me personally is that this is not limited to the realm of politics. It has seeped its way into churches — the one place in all the world where we should be able to find a healthy example of how leaders should lead and how followers should follow. Following the greatest Leader of all is what Christianity is supposed to be all about, after all. When Christians can’t get leadership and followership right, what’s the world to do?

Let’s talk about this for a while. Let’s take our time and be courteous and respectful, please. But let’s see if we can figure out what’s going on with this issue. And let’s start with the most basic premise of Christianity:

Have we misunderstood what it means to follow Jesus? What do you suppose following Jesus looks like? And how have churches and Christians missed the mark on this one?

Just FYI, I have recently caved in to the pressure of telling everyone what I’m having for lunch and how weird the guy at Walmart looks and how late I slept and how tired I am and my car needs gas and my dog jumped the fence and I’m going to workout and I’m watching Sportscenter and I’m taking one of my daughters to gymnastics and I’m listening to jazz right now and I’m drinking SmartWater and I got a new iPhone and pretty much every other little detail of my life all day every day.

In other words, I’m on Twitter now.

Follow me if you like: @johnalanturner

Also, I did get an iPhone. But I’m not drinking SmartWater — even though I should.

When I was growing up — which is a phrase I find myself using more and more often the older I get — the phrase “The Lord’s Day” was interchangeable with the word “Sunday”. No one questioned what it meant. It was understood and obvious. No one said, “Oh, wait, which day is that again? Is that Thursday?”

The Lord’s Day was Sunday.

And The Lord’s House was our church building.

And The Lord’s Church was our brand of church.

There could be no mistaking these things. They were portions of our common vocabulary, and, as such, they created a sense of community and belonging when used properly.

But what are the implications of these statements?

Having a day that is The Lord’s leaves us with six others for our own use, right?

And giving him a house meant he didn’t have to live at ours.

And branding ourselves his church allowed us to treat other churches with disdain.

Clearly, this wasn’t the intention when the phrases were first coined, but the implications were inevitable.

God has his day, and as long as I honor him on that day I can do pretty much whatever I like on my days.

God has his house, and as long as I don’t run in it or shout in it or build a kitchen in it (though building a bathroom was acceptable) we’ll know where to find him when we come to visit him on his day.

This makes life easier to manage — cordoning off portions, reserving sections for various purposes, allowing God to have a place but not to have run of the whole place.

But what if there is no set Lord’s Day? What if, in fact, every day is The Lord’s Day?

What might be the implications of that idea?

You might not be able to tell it from looking at my desk, but I’m a pretty regimented kind of guy. I like routine. My routine may not look like yours, and it probably wouldn’t work for you. But I like it. It brings me comfort to do familiar things in familiar, well-worn ways.

Over the years I’ve found that certain spiritual routines work well for me. I’ve gone through seasons where I prayed the Lord’s Prayer every morning. I’ve done the same with the 23rd Psalm. I’ve systematically read through the Bible in a year. Some may find these things boring, but they’ve been beneficial to me in the past.

But I went through a really, really rough patch in the last year. I’ve mentioned it before, but prayer was maddening. Reading the Bible was like eating stale bread. Nothing was working — especially not my normal routines. God seemed silent, distant, absent.

I trust you’ll excuse me for confessing that I began to pray less and read my Bible less. I began to journal more and listen to music and look at photographs of creation. Eventually, I chose to read smaller portions of the Bible — a paragraph each morning — instead of several chapters at once. I found that slowing down allowed me to think more deeply. The goal, after all, is not for you to get through the text but for the text to get through you.

And then, not too long ago, I felt God whispering something to me. It wasn’t a really big deal — the thing he told me that day. But it was huge for me. Since then, my routines have come back to life in a new way. It’s pretty exciting.

But it made me think about how Christians often talk about spiritual formation — as if there’s some kind of one-size-fits-all approach. Just recently, I heard someone say that if you’re not reading through the Bible each and every year, you’re just not taking your faith seriously. I also heard someone say that if you’re not having a daily quiet time of reading and praying (again, in a very systematic and routine sort of way), you’re just not taking your faith seriously.

Through the years, I’ve heard many variations of this theme. I remember when everything was about spiritual warfare and intercessory prayer. I remember when it was all about evangelism. I went through my contemplative and mystic stages — when it was all about worship and meditation.

But how much of this is really totally necessary? Is it absolutely essential to read your Bible if you want to grow spiritually? How much prayer do you need to make it as a Christian? Must you fast or intercede or spend an hour in solitude?

What are the mandatory items for spiritual growth?

Moses had his mountain top experience — literally. He went up to the top of a mountain and spoke with God. That must have been an amazing and overwhelming experience. Just imagine, sitting and listening to God and knowing that it’s really God and not just the leftover pizza you had for breakfast. It’s not your imagination. It’s not what you wish God would say.

You are sitting on top of a mountain listening to God, and — what’s more — you’re talking back and he’s listening to you!

That’s got to go down in history as one of the most spiritually formative event of all times, right?

It’s no wonder that Moses was glowing when he came back down to earth. Everyone must have noticed. There was a real, literal glow radiating from Moses’ face.

It certainly must have been more than a little distracting for people — trying to talk to a guy whose face is emitting light like that. Did they shield their eyes or make him face the other way? Did Moses’ wife ask him, “Could you bring your face over here to the corner? I dropped something and can’t find it.”

Was it his wife’s idea for him to put a veil over his face in the first place? “Moses, please, I can’t sleep. Can’t you turn that thing off?”

The veil was a good idea at first — helped people not think about the fact that his face was beaming while he was trying to talk about stuff. But, after a while, according to the apostle Paul, Moses kept the veil on even after his face had returned to normal.

What was that like? Did Moses lay awake at night watching the light grow more and more dim like a candle just before it goes out? Like an old TV set where the picture just gets darker and darker and darker?

Would people still think he’s special — even without the glowing face? Maybe it would be better to keep the veil on for a few more days. Maybe he could go back up to the mountain top and get another dose of whatever it was that caused this strange phenomenon in the first place.

When did he finally muster the courage to go outside without the veil?

It must have been when he finally realized the glow was gone and wasn’t coming back.

The apostle Paul says something interesting for those of us who live in this age where the Spirit of God is present and active in, among and through us. He says it’s possible for the mountain to come with us — at least the experience we had on top of the mountain. Jesus’ promise to never leave us, to never forsake us, the Immanuel presence of God, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit — all of that means the thing that charges us up isn’t in any fixed location. It’s not in the mountains somewhere waiting for us to plug it. It has plugged itself into us.

Any place is now a potentially holy place.

Any activity is now a potentially holy activity.

Spiritual formation doesn’t just take place somewhere “out there”. It can happen right here, too.

When I was growing up, spiritual formation was tied to a series of events. There were youth rallies and lectureships and retreats and, of course, summer camp (which always ended with a forced march into the darkness and a campfire and a story about a group of kids who were going home from this very camp a few years ago and died in a car crash so if there’s any unfinished business between you and the Lord you should make it right before you leave here).

These were our “Mountain Top Experiences”, and they were designed to charge us up enough to make it to the next event. It was like charging the battery on your laptop or your iPod. You knew the charge wouldn’t last forever; it just has to last until you can plug in again.

See, we knew that the “spiritual buzz” always fades. Moses experienced this in Exodus 34:29-35. He went up on a mountain to talk to God, and, when he came back down to earth, his face was actually glowing. I’m sure it freaked people out, so he put a veil over his face. At first, it was just to avoid freaking everybody out. But the Apostle Paul says it changed after a while (see 2 Corinthians 3:13). Moses started keeping the veil over his face longer than he needed to, because he didn’t want people to know that the glow had faded. He wanted them to think he was still charged up.

That’s one of the problems with events-based spirituality. It gets easy to fake that glow and pretend you’re still buzzed. But it fades. You know it. They know it. In fact, like your laptop, the charge starts fading more and more quickly over time.

In the end, you end up either faking it or looking for a bigger buzz, something that will give you a longer charge. If you went to one week of summer camp last year, go to two weeks this time. If your youth group had a fall retreat last year, add one for the spring this year and see what happens. What if we could have a youth rally every other weekend? Maybe that would give us the boost we need!

Yes, let’s have a retreat once per quarter and a mission trip and a youth rally and two weeks of summer camp! Let’s move to the mountain top so we never have to come unplugged!

Well, that’s not very realistic, is it? We have to live in our houses in our neighborhoods and go to our jobs and drive on these roads. We can’t spend every waking moment at an event designed to charge us up. We do not live on the mountain top, and, if we did, we’d grow weary of that life anyway. It’s unsustainable. Besides, someone some time would ask the inevitable questions: What are we getting charged up for? So we can say how charged up we are? You charge something for a reason, don’t you?

So, if real spiritual formation isn’t about super-charged events like these, how does it happen?