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One Size Doesn't Fit All: Are You Put Off by a Feminine Faith?

Ignoring the Differences Between Men and Women?

Have you ever noticed that men tend to exercise much differently than women do? If you've been a member of a local gym or athletic club, you probably know what I mean. I rarely see a woman sit down on a rowing machine, for instance, and there are certain classes in the club where there will be nine women for every one man who attends.

Or take your local video store. When a producer names his movie The Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood, he (or she) is clearly not envisioning much of a male audience. And I don't think you'll see too many women going for The Three Stooges. Most women don't think that the three stooges are all that funny (can you believe it?).

This principle continues into the stores we patronize. I've never — not once — felt an urge to shop for myself in my daughter's favorite store, The Body Shop. Call me weird, but the thought of spending money on grapefruit scented hand lotion or cucumber body scrub really doesn't do much for me.

The differences between men and women are all pretty much accepted truths for marketing gurus — so why does the Church go out of its way to ignore them? So often, devotion to God is presented as a gender-less, multi-generational plan, where a 50-year-old male plumber is supposed to be served by the same type of devotional experience as a 12-year-old girl who has a calendar featuring golden retriever puppies on her wall.

Have you been turned off by a one-size-fits-all spirituality that doesn't fit you? Have your devotional times been turned into exercises of frustration and guilt because they bore you? Are you tired of trying to stay true to a mode of personal prayer that may work for someone else but has never really worked for you?

Be encouraged: if your devotional times are marked by more angst than ardor, it may not be God that you're reacting against; it very likely could be that you're practicing a form of prayer for which you're not particularly suited.

Free to Be You

I've always been a morning person. In college, I liked to get up early to pray. That's when my mind is most active, and I liked the idea that my first thoughts would be centered on God.

Naturally, I thought my way was the best way. I gave my girlfriend (and future wife) a hard time, because she (being a late-night type of person) tended to roll out of bed fifteen minutes before her first class; after attending all her classes, she'd come back to the dorm after lunch, then go up onto the roof with her Bible to pray and read.

"At least be honest," I challenged her. "Who goes up onto the roof after lunch, lies in the sun, and calls that a quiet time?"

Two weeks later, there was a loud knock on my door. Lisa walked into my room, placed her open Bible in front of me, and pointed at Acts 10:9 (NIV): "About noon the following day … Peter went up on the roof to pray."

OK, score one for Lisa.

When I had kids, I realized each of them liked to do different things with me. When my youngest daughter was a little girl, she loved to go to IHOP and eat pancakes. My son likes to be competitive. If we're not competing with each other, it's likely we're watching someone else compete — the Seahawks, or the Mariners, or the Sonics. And my oldest daughter prefers relationship-centered talks, preferably while drinking a latte at Starbucks.

I would never even think of telling my youngest daughter that the only place I'll meet with her is on the way to a Seattle Seahawks game, just as I would never tell my son that unless he wants to get together at Starbucks, he can go find another dad to talk to. In fact, I like having a different relationship, and doing different things, with each of my kids.

And then it hit me: why would my Heavenly Father be any different? After all, He made us! Don't we celebrate God's creativity when we learn to love Him in different ways?

One Savior, Many Servants

Both Scripture and Christian tradition present a wide variety of devotional approaches to God, all equally acceptable, and all open to the fact that God makes us with different dispositions and personal preferences. Some forms of personal devotion that seem to fit us just right might be too noisy, too quiet, too liturgical, or too strange to someone else. When it comes to abilities and preferences, we are not the same. And when it comes to the issue of loving God, we should not get tense and uptight when we don't worship the same way as others.

When I read through the Bible, I see Abraham building altars, David dancing or writing a psalm, Mary sitting adoringly at Jesus' feet, Peter's mother-in-law serving — yet all of these people loved God and were worshipping Him while doing different things. Can you even imagine Jesus looking down on Mary and saying, "Quit staring at me! If you really want to show your love, go build me an altar, just like Abraham did! Those were really cool, and I'd like more of them."

We wouldn't go to Zaire or Peru and expect the people there to worship God exactly the same way that a Baptist from Georgia or an Episcopalian from Boston would do, but often when we deal with young people, we expect the energetic kids and the meditative kids to fit into one mold when it comes to devotions or quiet time. I found that it just doesn't work that way. God didn't use a cookie cutter to create us; He has designed us with such variety that it's only natural that we will worship Him in different ways.

Some of you guys may have your hearts opened up to God when you get out of doors. God seems more real to you when there's a mountain in the background, and you're hiking under a big expanse of sky. Others of you really like books — even the reference kind. You're moved by concepts, and you want to come out of your devotional time with some new understanding. Still others may be more aesthetically inclined; you're the artistic type, and you prefer creative and original music, or even good architecture to open your heart to God's presence.

Desire or Discipline?

If you're like me, you tend to do what you like to do. I can make myself do certain things out of obligation, but if I'm going to devote myself to something, I have to enjoy it. When I'm training for a marathon, I look forward to the long runs. I love doing them and have to force myself to take an occasional day off.

But when I'm injured and am trying to stay in shape by using exercise machines, I have to force myself to get active, because there's no fun for me in working out inside on a cross trainer. The consequence is, if I'm not running, I quickly fall out of shape, because I tend to do what I like to do.

The church spends a lot of time talking about discipline. In one sense, that's good, because discipline is an essential element of faith. ("Fools despise wisdom and discipline" [Proverbs 1:7].) But I've found another "D" word, equally as powerful as discipline, and it's called: desire. When I desire something, it doesn't take much discipline to do it. Desire can be an equally powerful force as discipline, as long as I desire a good thing.

If I can find a form of devotion that I genuinely enjoy and look forward to, I'm going to spend much more time with God. A foundational verse for me has been Jeremiah 30:21b: "'[W]ho is he who will devote himself to be close to me?' declares the Lord." If I'm going to devote myself to being close to God, it helps to find a way that I enjoy meeting with God — or I may grow slack in cultivating that all important relationship and fall far short of Scripture's call for me to be "devoted." Some of you may be able to persevere, for a time, on discipline alone — but most of us would do well to find the right mix between devotion and discipline.

In my next article in this series, I want to introduce you to the nine "sacred pathways": nine different "windows" through which you can encounter God's presence. They're based on a book I wrote 10 years ago that has now been used by Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, John Ortberg, Andy Stanley and many others to help give their churches new perspective on the wide variety of personal devotion that exists within the Christian faith.

For now, I just want you to wrestle with the question of what brings you closest to God. Does God really care whether I pray in a quiet room by myself, in a noisy room where others are with me, on a walk through the woods, or sitting in a cathedral — or does He just care that I'm praying? Does it matter to Him that I prefer to memorize Scripture, read through the Bible in one year, or take one year to study one book of the Bible in-depth — or does He just care that the word is part of my daily diet?

C O F F E E  S H O P

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If there's no stereotypical quiet time in Scripture, why do we make ourselves slaves to one today?

Join the discussion!

I want you to have the freedom to develop a form of personal devotion that is invigorating, exciting, and nourishing to you. I don't care if your girlfriend thinks it's odd, or your small group study leader has a different approach; I care that you are able to devote yourself to becoming close to God. To do that, I believe you have to get rid of the "one size fits all" approach and find a pathway uniquely designed for who God made you to be. There is only one Savior — Jesus Christ. But there are many ways that his people can express their love and devotion to Him.

In my next article, I'll provide some ways to discover how you can develop a form of devotion uniquely suited for the person God created you to be.