Lenny Luchetti - Overcoming Spiritual Slump: A Story of Acedia and How God Can Get You Back in the Game

OVERCOMING
SPIRITUAL
SLUMP

Lenny Luchetti

A Story of Acedia and
How God Can Get You Back in the Game

Copyright 2021 by Lenny Luchetti

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwisewithout prior written permission, except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible, Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.Lockman.org.

Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America

Cover design by Strange Last Name
Page design and layout by PerfecType, Nashville, Tennessee

Luchetti, Lenny

Overcoming spiritual slump : a story of acedia and how God can get you back in the game / Lenny Luchetti. Franklin, Tennessee : Seedbed Publishing, 2021.

pages ; cm . + 1 videodisc

ISBN 9781628249071 (paperback)

ISBN 9781628249088 (Mobi)

ISBN 9781628249095 (ePub)

ISBN 9781628249101 (uPDF)

OCLC 1252416940

1. Acedia. 2. Spiritual life--Christianity. 3. David, King of Israel. I. Title.

BV4627.S65 L82 2021 241.3 2021939529

SEEDBED PUBLISHING

Franklin, Tennessee

seedbed.com

To Amy and Tim, braids in the rope
God used to pull me out of the slump.

My writing is done in physical isolation from other people, mostly because Im all too easily distracted by anything that moves. Even Henry and Mabel, my dog and cat, steal my focus from the work of writing. No writer, though, truly writes alone. My life and this book are the result of the community in which I live, move, and have my being (see Acts 17:28). I am who I am because of Godthe Father, Son, and Holy Spiritand the church, my family, friends, and flock.

God broke the bars of [my] yoke and enabled [me] to walk with [my head] held high (Lev. 26:13b). That is, in short, the story of my life and the backdrop for Overcoming Spiritual Slump. To tell you the truth, a few of the personal details I recount in the following pages elicit some shame in me. Then I remember the grace of God, my glory, the One who lifts my head high (Ps. 3:3b). I believe God has given me the grace to write this book with the brutal, even humiliating, honesty necessary to help disciples who feel stuck in stagnancy.

The church has had a major role in this books development. While teaching seminary classes; preaching at camps, colleges, and congregations; and sipping coffee with my family and friends I have beta tested the observations, ideas, and hopes sprinkled throughout the following pages. The frequent response to the beta test was: So many of us struggle with the spiritual slump and we need a hopeful process for getting unstuck. Their affirmation gave me the courageous compassion to write what follows.

The Seedbed Publishing team, led by Andy Miller, provided the nudge I needed to cross the finish line. Their passion for loving Christ and resourcing the church is contagious.

I was a secret slumper. Most people knew me as a seminary professor, a pastor to pastors, and a published author in demand as a speaker for clergy and church events. But deep down in my soul, where only God could see, I was struggling with spiritual stagnation for several years. Praying, reading the Bible, and communing with other Christians seemed more appalling than appealing to me, more like a root canal or colonoscopy than a delight. I was in big trouble and didnt care. Whats worse, I didnt care that I didnt care. For the first time in my life I experienced what early Christians called acedia. Acedia is spiritual apathy that causes one to slowly drift from the divine. I was stuck smack-dab in the middle of a spiritual midlife crisis.

Acedia, a lack of passion for God, was a new experience for me. Ever since entering into a friendship with God through Christ at age eighteen, my heart beat strong for him. Heres the backstory. Previous to my conversion, I was a mess; so low I could wear a top hat and walk under a snake. My parents, whom I adored, were battling an addiction to heroin. Heroin was winning. I needed an escape from the fear and shame. Cheap beer with a chaser of pot became my bosom buddies. Quickly, they became dominating bullies who led me to places I didnt really want to go.

By the time I was sixteen I was an alcoholic, getting drunk several times each week. In the fall of my junior year of high school, I concluded it was nearly impossible to be a student and a drunk. One of them had to go, high school or the high life. I decided to abstain from school. Now I could get drunk without having to wake up hungover for school in the morning. Yippee! I had no money but was living with my grandmother, who always seemed to forget how much was really in her purse. Lucky me.

The urban, vice-infested streets of Philadelphia were the stage for my five-alarm wake-up call. I was drunk, high, and bored. I started a fight with a guy in his twenties for no other reason but to entertain me and my crew of friends, who were almost as intoxicated as I was, but not quite. I walked up to the guy, my beer muscles growing with every step, and landed a right hook to his head. Seeing I had a sizable posse, he ran. I chased him. When he saw I was alone, he turned to me and put up his hands, Ali-style. I ran toward him with another right hook, so drunk I failed to see the knife in his left hand. But I felt it. The blade traveled four inches into my right side, puncturing my lung. I almost died, but was internally dead already.

The several days I spent in the hospital attached to a chest tube gave me time to reflect on my dismal life. I internally and intuitively admitted the first two steps of AA: Im in trouble and I need help. Not long after my four-day vacation at the Methodist Hospital in South Philly, I went on another vacation. Since high school wasnt getting in my way, I suppose I had the time to see the world. I went to an all-inclusive resort in Syracuse, New York, called Teen Challenge, a Christ-centered drug and alcohol rehabilitation center. The lodging and food werent five-star, not even close, but the excursions into Christ were transformational. Along with my parents who were in recovery, I entered into a life-saving, dignity-bestowing, and hope-inducing relationship with Jesus Christ. Friends and family members who knew me best back then acknowledged the miracle of me not only being physically, but fully, alive.