Spirituality without strings attached

Just a brief note from the middle of Lancaster mission week....

Buddhists, Buddhists everywhere. And not from Asia. In two days of mission, I've now had three significant gospel conversations with people that would describe themselves as Buddhist - one from the Czech Republic, one from the US and one from Britain. I don't think that they're Buddhist in the conventional way but they've certainly got very Eastern ideas of spirituality.

What's struck me from these three lengthy conversations is that all three people have really got a hunger for spirituality and for spiritual experience. They are also all practical atheists, even if they are confessing agnostics. They crave experience, but don't want the accountability that comes with thinking about the Creator God of the Universe. In fact, none of those I've met even want to entertain the possibility that God might somehow say something about how they are living their lives.

Sin is, of course, subtle. And here's a very subtle form. I'm happy to be religious, I crave spiritual experience, but I don't want to know the Creator. My idol is my experience. I don't care if it's not authentic.

Please pray for these people. Pray that they crave genuine spirituality, and that come to know the freedom that comes from the life with the Father that Jesus brings.