Ignatian Joy Overcomes Duty

By Dale Gish

I’ve been a very dutiful person. I have wanted to know what is right and true and live it out. There’s a real value in this kind of serious discipleship and faithfulness. But I think there is a downside. Have I and have we become dutiful Christians rather than joyful Christians?

Let’s explore this in the context of prayer. What kind of prayer does God really want from us? Well, God, of course, wants us to spend time with Him, but the spirit in which we spend that time also matters. I think that God longs for us to have our hearts in it.

While we all have times when we have to force ourselves to pray, ultimately, God wants us to want to spend time with Him and enjoy it. Do you like spending time with people who force themselves to do so? I don’t, and I think it isn’t God’s favorite, either.

The Ignatian Exercises rocked my world in this. As I prayed and encountered Jesus, I discovered that I wanted to be with Jesus. I loved Him and loved being loved by Him. I wanted to care about the things he cares about and love the people he loves. I found my experience of God transformed from a demanding taskmaster to a God I wanted to be with and met me daily with comfort, challenge, encouragement, and joy. I would hear Jesus asking me, “What do you want?” I found myself answering that what I wanted most was Him and giving myself to Him.

I am blessed to be surrounded by Christians and to be a spiritual director to Christians who take discipleship seriously. These Christians have attempted to make their lives about following Jesus and giving their lives to the body of Christ. I am truly grateful for that. However, sometimes, I see much more duty and obligation than joy in the Lord.

One of the biggest things I do in spiritual direction is to walk with dutiful Christians as they grow in having desire and joy become more of their motivation. I don’t want them to throw out serious discipleship, but instead, I want to help them find a new motivation for their serious discipleship, desire, and joy. The Ignatian Exercises are designed to do this, and Jesus Himself always seems to call people to have deep desire and joy as they pray through his life. Maybe that is why I love the Exercises so much.

I have a long way to go to become more fully motivated by desire and joy, but I am glad to be on this journey with the Lord. It is easy to fall back into duty, but Jesus loves it when I step into desire and joy.

“Dale, what do you want?” “I want you, Jesus.”

“Give me only your love and your grace. That’s enough for me.” -Ignatius of Loyola