đ This essay was originally published on Deep Spirituality. Read the original here.
In the opening lines of the song âCheers,â Anderson .Paak puts words to a universal feeling: our innate desire to live an extraordinary life. Each of us has dreamed of a âworld premiere,â something big we know we are meant for, no matter how far away it seems. It lights a fire inside us and makes our spirit come alive.
Absent trauma, I believe every kid begins life this way.
I felt these lines decades before I heard them. For me, it began with science. At five years old, dressed in a NASA flight suit, I dreamed of discovery.
I had no idea where I would go from thereâbut God did. He cleared the runway for me to discover what it truly meant to live an extraordinary, beautiful, and spiritually powerful life.
He is still clearing the runway for me. He is doing the same thing for you.
In todayâs edition of The Chemistry Lab, weâll learn to reignite the fire God has placed in each of us and discover what it means to live a beautiful life.
The Workshop: How we lose our fire
A place of discovery where a story sparks insight, observation, and a deeper understanding of walking with God.
God delights in concealing things; scientists delight in discovering things.
Proverbs 25:2 MSG
It was a breezy summer day in Michigan. My parents were out, and my older sister was in charge. I was in my bedroom, intellectually locked in. There, at a kitchen table turned lab bench, I launched my first experiment.
I didnât follow the instructions. I created my own formula.
The ensuing smoke signaled to me that Iâd made a discoveryâbut what it signaled to my parents as they pulled into the driveway was something else entirely.
They ran in, expecting disaster. What they found was meâten years old, grinning, wide-eyed, believing that Iâd just made a breakthrough.
This story from decades ago is what inspired The Chemistry Lab. Through that very literal fire in my makeshift lab, God was revealing something to me that had been previously hidden â the fire of discovery, the ability to look at life with wonder and awe.
I learned that even in mistakes and mishaps, something beautiful can be born. While my ambitions at the time were limited to science, God was laying the groundwork for me to discover what it truly would mean to live a beautiful life.
Why did I choose science over God?
Church came first, before the chemistry lab. I remember being six or seven, sitting in pews, surrounded by people doing ordinary things. I didnât feel wonder. I didnât hear awe. I wasnât drawn in.
Then came scienceâand as you already know, it arrived with fire.
In middle school, I was deep in the world of beakers and Bunsen burners when my mom brought home a brand-new edition of The Living Bible. I devoured booksâso I opened it. Genesis. Exodus. I was curiousâuntil I hit the parts that felt repetitive, difficult, or impractical.
The Scriptures are filled with awe, but I needed help to see it. Absent the help, the wonder faded.
I went back to my lab.
Many people lose their fire for God this way.
Itâs not because they hate faith. Itâs because religion without wonder cannot compete with science presented with awe.
This is what we as religious people can miss about people like I used to beâ atheists, agnostics, and those seeking God without attending church. They are looking for wonder. And, at our core, so are we.
The spirit of a person is the lamp of the Lord, searching all the innermost parts of his being.
Proverbs 20:27 NASB
The literal and interpretive translations of the Bible say something stunning in Proverbs 20:27âthat our human spirit is the fire of God, a searching light that probes the deepest parts of who we are.
That means God designed us to burn with curiosity, to pursue meaning, and to ignite discovery.
Science taught me that there were mysteries in the world. If I developed the necessary skills and used the expansive number of tools available to me, I could discover and deploy the powers of science to solve problems, answer questions, and resolve those mysteries.
Church didnât give me that feeling.
Why church often fails to spark wonder
They will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godlyâŚ
2 Timothy 3:5 NLT
Too often, Christianity is presented as behavioral religiosityâa way of acting Christian without being spiritually transformed. We read stories about people in the Bible, and we learn about what they did or didnât do. But too often we overlook their encounters with the God of wonderâthe moments that set their spirits on fire, that show us how we can experience that same God today.
We see the rules and ritualsâbut not the spirituality and fire.
God didnât design us for powerless religion or cold conformity. He didnât call us to traditionalism or routine. He designed us to break free from the humanistic limitations of behavioral religion to discover his power flowing into our lives.
The greatest hindrance to knowledge is our adjustment to conventional notions, to mental cliches. Wonder or radical amazement, the state of maladjustment to words and notions, is, therefore, a prerequisite for an authentic awareness of that which is.
Abraham Joshua Heschel, Man Is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion
Wonder isnât optional. Itâs how we wake up. Itâs how we find inspiration.
Itâs how we see Godânot just as a concept, but as the source and spark of our internal fire.
Reigniting the fire
Have you lost your fire? Cynicism and religiosity made me lose mine, while suffering or overload might make others lose theirs. If youâve lost your fire, Jesus is not waiting to punish you. Heâs coming to revive you.
âHe will not break a bent twig.
Your fire might be dimly burning, but itâs not gone. While it may be flickering, that flicker is the beginning of moving from religious to spiritual, from powerless to powerful.
Workshop this:
Have you lost your wonder?
Are you living religiously or spiritually?
Does your faith spark anything in you or those around you?
The Element of âSpiritâ
A new element from our Spiritual Periodic Table of the Elements that builds a life of spiritual depth and power.
Properties
Name: Spirit
Symbol(s): Sp (for human spirit), Sp² (human spirit joined with Godâs Spirit)
Category: Vital Elements
Function: Awakens fire, activates flow, restores awe, reveals destiny.
âSpiritâ is my first entry into our Spiritual Periodic Table. âSpiritâ is where fire meets flow.
God has given us a spirit of fire burning with life. This interpretive translation from the Jubilee Bible is meant to help us connect with the emotion of Proverbs 20:27, which we read earlier:
âThe spirit of man is the fire of the Lord, which searches the secrets of the inward parts.â
Our spirits arenât passiveâthey burn with the intensity of fire.
This fire is meant to fill our lives with light, illuminating our lives with mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical self and soul awareness (Proverbs 20:27 NIV).
But until theyâre plugged into Godâs Spirit, they operate far below their potential, like a match waiting for a spark.
Spiritual flow: The God connection
Once a connection is made with God, something explosive happens: alignment.
No longer wandering, we begin to discover what a truly good and beautiful life isânot just biologically alive, but spiritually alive.
His Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are Godâs children.
Romans 8:16 NLT
Donât you know that He who pursues and explores the human heart intimately knows the Spiritâs mind because He pleads to God for His saints to align their lives with the will of God? [28] We are confident that God is able to orchestrate everything to work toward something good and beautiful when we love Him and accept His invitation to live according to His plan.
Romans 8:27-28 Voice
Our human spirit is what makes us capable of experiencing the spiritual chemistry of walking with God. This is what we can call spiritual flow, when Godâs Spirit joins with our spirit to unleash light, power, and fire.
This isnât religion.
Itâs spiritual chemistry.
Itâs wonder.
Itâs awe.
The element of the spirit is what makes us spiritual. It is more than waking up to study our Bible and pray each morning. It is our connection with God.
The component most responsible for our ability to live a beautiful life might be what psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls flow:
A state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
His book summarizes decades of research on the positive characteristics of human experience, including joy, creativity, and flowâwhich he describes as âthe process of total involvement with life.â
While many seek flow through new techniques or settings, God has provided a spiritual path to it. Flow has been available for millennia through the joining of his Spirit with ours
God formed the spirit within
âThe LORD, who stretches out the heavens, who lays the foundation of the earth, and who forms the human spirit within a person, declaresâŚâ
Zechariah 12:1 NIV
Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it.
Ecclesiastes 12:7 NASB
âBut it is a spirit that is in mankind, And the breath of the Almighty gives them understanding.â
Job 32:8 NASB
No one can know a personâs thoughts except that personâs own spirit, and no one can know Godâs thoughts except Godâs own Spirit. [12] And we have received Godâs Spirit (not the worldâs spirit), so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us.
1 Corinthians 2:11â12 NLT
Our spirit was formed by God. It holds our thoughts, our pain, our sin, our potential, and our dreams. But without God, it becomes crushed, disconnected, disillusioned, unfaithful, and wandering:
The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
Psalm 34:18 NIV
A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.
Proverbs 17:22 NIV
The human spirit can endure a sick body, but who can bear a crushed spirit?
Proverbs 18:14 NLT
Use this week to study these scriptures, working to become aware of your spirit. Ask yourself these questions:
What affects my spirit?
What strengthens my spirit?
What weakens my spirit?
Then devote yourself to staying connected to God so that your spirit remains cheerful and strong. God has laid dreams on our hearts that glorify him, and we need that enduring spirit to see them come true.
Flow = Spiritual connection
Spiritual flow comes from sustaining a continuous Spirit connection, which is what Romans 8 is all about. It is not merely theological; it is personal.
So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received Godâs Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, âAbba, Father.â [16] For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are Godâs children.
Romans 8:15â16 NLT
When the Spirit of God joins with our spirit, we enter the spiritual flow state.
This is freedom:
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. [18] And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lordâs glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
2 Corinthians 3:17â18 NIV
This is oneness:
But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him.
1 Corinthians 6:17 NASB
This is intimacy:
Or do you think that the Scripture says to no purpose, âHe jealously desires the Spirit whom He has made to dwell in usâ? And this is power.
James 4:5 NASB
Neglecting the spiritual aspect of life turns the Christian life into a grind instead of a beautiful flow. We cannot let this happen to ourselves or those we love because God longs to have his power flow through our lives without limit.
Creating a flow week
But the fruit produced by the Holy Spirit within you is divine love in all its varied expressions: joy that overflows, peace that subdues, patience that endures, kindness in action, a life full of virtue, faith that prevails, gentleness of heart, and strength of spirit. Never set the law above these qualities, for they are meant to be limitless.
Galatians 5:22 TPT
One of the motivations for me and our team to create The Chemistry Lab is what I learned about Abraham Heschel from his daughter when she wrote that his goal was to make God audible. That is my goalâto not merely have insight about God and Scripture, but to experience his feelings by entering and remaining in the flow state.
⌠For my father, the importance of prophecy lies not only in the message, but in the role of the prophet as a witness, someone who is able to make God audible and to reveal not only Godâs will, but Godâs inner life. To be a prophet, he writes, is to be in fellowship with the feelings of God, to experience communion with the divine consciousness. The prophet hears Godâs voice and looks at the world from Godâs perspective.
Susannah Heschel, Introduction to The Prophets by Abraham Joshua Heschel
Let this be a âflow week,â a week when you experience the limitless qualities of Galatians 5:22 by embracing the element of the spirit!
As Augustine said about God:
You made us with yourself as our goal, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.
Augustine, Confessions