Misusing spirituality...

A few days ago I read excerpts from The Dark Night of the Soul written by John of the Cross in the 16th century. He writes of the seven deadly sins (also known as cardinal sins) and how they relate to Christians who may be misusing their spirituality. I can't say that I'm terribly familiar with the seven sins - pride, greed, luxury, wrath, gluttony, envy, sloth - but I remember reading about the cardinal virtues (the opposite of the sins) in C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity.

The thing that John did with the sins caught me by surprise. Something I would say many Christians need to hear in order to guard against a Pharisaical attitude. The thing Jesus rebuked the most. Except for the first one, he phrases each sin with "spiritual _____." Seems like an oxymoron. It isn't. Our spirituality can go in a bad way.

Out of the seven, these four caught my attention: (these phrases are taken directly from the author):

• Secret pride - to become too spiritual. Content with their growth. Prefer to teach rather than to be taught. Condemn others. Beg God to take away their imperfections, not for God's sake, but for their own inner peace. Do spiritual exercises to be esteemed by others. Want others to realize how spiritual they are.

Opposite: humility... learn to think very little of themselves and their religious works. Focus on how great and how deserving God is and how little it is that they can do for him.

• Spiritual greed - become discontent with what God gives them. Hearts grow attached to the feelings they get from their devotional life, focusing on the affect, not on the substance. Begin to value visible things too highly. Like religious objects/holy places.

Opposite - set eyes on God and not on outward things or inner experiences. Sometimes these things have to be removed in order for a soul to grow. A soul will never grow until it is able to let go of the tight grasp it has on God.

• Spiritual wrath - anger and bitterness sets in when the benefits of the spiritual life are taken away. Some become angry with themselves at this point thinking they are the result of the lack of joy, something they have done or have neglected to do.

Opposite - patience to wait for whatever God would give them, when He chooses to give it to them.

• Spiritual gluttony - become addicted to the spiritual sweetness of the devotional life and strive to obtain more and more of it. Such persons are working their own will... they do these things for themselves, not for God, and for this reason they will soon grow weary in them. Probably better for these persons to give up their devotions entirely. Such souls can actually lose their spirituality.

Opposite - faith in the invisible and unfelt grace of God that is much greater than any addiction to spiritual exercises.

John finishes out this section on the 7 deadly sins with this.

"God perceives the imperfections within us, and because of his love for us, urges us to grow up. His love is not content to leave us in our weakness, and for this reason he takes us into a dark night. He weans us from all of the pleasures by giving us dry times and inward darkness.

In doing so he is able to take away all these vices and create virtues within us. Through the dark night pride becomes humility, greed becomes simplicity, wrath becomes contentment, luxury becomes peace, gluttony becomes moderation, envy becomes joy, and sloth becomes strength. No soul will ever grow deep in the spiritual life unless God works passively in that soul by means of the dark night."

I thought of Psalm 131 when I read this. Three little verses, but so powerful. Oh, that I might be responsive to the passive work of the Spirit in my life.