Gene Edwards - Living Close to God (When Youre Not Good at It): A Spiritual Life That Takes You Deeper Than Daily Devotions

Many Christians find it difficult to have a spiritual life. This is the story of one such Christian. By the books end, you will find many practical helps, even if, like me, you are a Christian who is not endowed with a natural spiritual aptitude.

L IVING C LOSE TO G OD (W HEN Y OURE N OT G OOD AT I T )
P UBLISHED BY W ATER B ROOK P RESS
12265 Oracle Boulevard, Suite 200
Colorado Springs, Colorado 80921

All Scripture quotations are taken from the authors English translation from Hebrew and Greek sources. Any similarities in wording to existing modern English Bible translations are coincidental.

eISBN: 978-0-307-73020-6

Copyright 2011 by Gene Edwards

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published in the United States by WaterBrook Multnomah, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc., New York.

W ATER B ROOK and its deer colophon are registered trademarks of Random House Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Edwards, Gene, 1932
Living close to God (when youre not good at it) : a spiritual life that takes you deeper than daily devotions/Gene Edwards.1st ed.
p. cm.
1. Spiritual lifeChristianity. I. Title.
BV4501.3.E393 2011
248.4dc23
2011020647

v3.1

She was a missionary to China. She wrote to her mission board asking them to no longer consider her a foreign missionary. She became part of the Little Flock of China. With the outbreak of the Japanese-Chinese war, she was imprisoned by the Japanese. After the war she returned to the United States, where I met her in Louisville, Kentucky. I learned more about walking with the Lord just by watching her than from anyone else I knew or from any books I read. I often said, You could sense the presence of the Lord in her, even if she was on the other side of a brick wall.

T O B ETA S CHEIRICH (18931967)

It was a chance remark made by a friend that marked the genesis of this book. Scott Kurkian was describing a day at his office: The phone rings constantly. I live in a state of constant interruption. I receive two hundred e-mails a day, and everyone wants an instant answer. I do not have a moment to turn to the Lord.

Perhaps I should have written this book several decades ago. Nonetheless, it is our age of incessant noise that makes the content of this book so acutely needed today.

To those who made this book possible by means of a labor of love: Diane Mercer, Kathy McGraw, and Helen Edwards. Thank you!

I consider myself to be spiritually handicapped.

Christians who know the Lord well seem to have a natural spiritual bent. I am not so endowed. As to things spiritual, I have always thought of myself as being some kind of rare case because of my nonspiritual nature. If you happen to fall into this same rare case, then join me in this journey in search of a spiritual life for Christians who are not naturally spiritually inclined.

I did not grow up in a devout family. I was raised in the home of a laboring mana doer by nature. So was his father before him: like father, like son. I am a natural doer.

I broke horses, played football, and began working in the oil fields as a roughneck at age fourteen. Roughnecks are plain-spoken, practical, tough, down-to-earth men. That was my world. Being a doer was, and is, my nature.

No, I am not a spiritual person. The only thing I had in my favor, spiritually, was a spectacular conversion to Christ. I was converted while in college. I graduated from college, was called to the ministry, and entered seminary all in the same week.

What was instilled in me by my denomination was the imperative of winning others to Christ. That fit the doer in me perfectly. Evangelism was my consuming passion. Further, I was still an oil-field roughneck at heart. A public display of piety was beyond me. It still is. I also found that I was a most unlikely candidate for being a pastor. (My parishioners soon made the same discovery!) My sole interest was to turn the world upside down and win everyone on earth to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Then came

No young believer should ever rise quickly in the ministry. I became a pastor at age twenty-one, a seminary graduate at twenty-two, and by age twenty-four, I had written a book on personal evangelism. That book became a bestseller, and not only was the book well received, but so was its author. In a skyrocketing ascent, I was soon conducting citywide campaigns, sending Christians out to knock on every door in the city in an effort to lead people to Christ. This much notoriety, this much leadership, this furious pace could have easily been a stew for disaster.

My zeal for Christ never faltered, but I gradually came face to face with the reality of emptiness. In the midst of a national, many-layered ministry, my spiritual desperation grew. I reached the point where I had to choose between two paths: either continue in my ministry or come to know Christ better. I could not do both.

One day I wrote myself a note: It is far more important to me that I come to know my Lord in living reality than it is to be in ministry without it. Finally, I sat with my family and shared my desperation. I then cancelled all my campaigns. I had become a pilgrim traveling in uncharted lands.

My zeal for Christ never faltered,
but I gradually came face to face
with the reality of emptiness.

But just where would I begin this pilgrimage? I began by searching for books that might help provide answers, something that would show me how to have some kind of a spiritual life. I could find no such helps. Nor did I find any Christian who could help this desperate beggar. As noted already, I was convinced that I was a special case.

I know the evangelical world. (I have spoken in hundreds of churches and worked with thousands of ministers while conducting citywide campaigns.) In the evangelical world I knew I would find much being said about prayer. I knew a few men who spent an hour or more in prayer every day. Some of them evidenced some spiritual touch; in others, no such evidence was apparent. Few of them testified of a practical relationship with the Lord Jesus. As for me, I could not see myself praying for an hour every day.

I knew by instinct there was a great distinction between praying and fellowship with the Lord. The difference is vast. (It is entirely possible to be fully devoted to prayer and never actually fellowship with the Lord.) As to the many books I read, virtually every one was centered on the subject of prayer. Sadly, those teachings did nothing to address my desperation to know the Lord better. Their advice led to the very thing I was trying to escape. (Remember, I am naturally a doer.)