By Ken Yun, InterHigh Mentor, Junior @ UC Berkeley

Give examples of the mind being “unfruitful” in the midst of spiritual activities. What is the danger of this? Is there evidence of this kind of mindless involvement in spiritual activities in my life?

As Apostle Paul noticed that the Corinthians sought to speak tongues in order to sound spiritual, he became concerned that Christians in the Corinthian church were being mindless and therefore unfruitful in their spiritual activities. Christian minds can be unfruitful in the midst of spiritual activities when one is praying the same prayer one always prays for the sake of saying something, and does not really think about what the prayer means anymore. Another example can be found when praise becomes only about the music and emotions, rather than singing the words meaningfully to God. This is not to say that emotions and good music is bad, only that singing the words meaninglessly can cause praise to be unfruitful. Praise can be corporate worship to God, where each believer sees that he sings these same words that glorify God together with others, but when the words are sung without thinking about their meaning, the believer is not edified. The danger of praying or praising mindlessly is that the spiritual activities become meaningless to the believer and do not glorify God. Rather, the focus of the spiritual activity is centered around how the believer appears to others and also causes the believer to be deceived by thinking those spiritual activities were meaningful.

There is evidence of this kind of mindless involvement in spiritual activities in my life in both prayer and praise. During personal and more public prayers, I struggle with praying words and sentences meaningfully. Instead, I pray those sentences and sentiments out of habit or ritual. When I pray before meals, pray during the day, pray at night, pray at prayer meetings, I must not pray thoughtlessly for the truth is that although man looks at the exterior, God looks at the heart and spiritual activities should be done to please God and to be a part of His work of building up the church. Also, during praise I have a difficult time focusing on how meaningful the words are to me and instead think more about what I sound like when I sing or I get lost in the emotions and excitement of the music. To try not to do this, sometimes I will simply stop singing so that I can really just think more about the lyrics of the song. When I do this, I find that, even though I start singing later in the song, the experience and the words are much, much more meaningful to me. Steps I can take to more actively engage the mind in my prayer and in my praise are to be more sincere, be less mindful of how I am viewed by others, be more mindful of how my spiritual activities are done for God, and to be deeper in the Word.

By Christine Seo, InterHigh Mentor, Sophomore @ UC Berkeley

Give examples of the mind being “unfruitful” in the midst of spiritual activities.  What is the danger of this?

Sometimes, when we praise, our heads get distracted about school, work, our friends, our worries and what not and find, that by the end of the song, we haven’t really sang about anything. In prayer, during a message, while doing our DTs, when our minds are elsewhere, it’s quite easy to not listen to the prayer, to not get anything out of the message, to write meaningless and superficial DTs. When this happens, because it does happen even to the best of us, we risk living stale Christian lives; Christian lives that are shiny and outwardly “spiritual”, but inside are dead. The messages will never be personal enough to apply to our lives to make a difference, the prayers will be pointless, and praise will never remind us of God’s great love. Our spiritual growth will come to a complete halt.

Is there evidence of this kind of mindless involvement in spiritual activities in my life?
Are there some steps I need to take to more actively engage the mind in my prayer and in my praise?

Personally, I find myself getting distracted during the midst of spiritual activities. During an especially stressful or tired period, during praise or the message, I find myself thinking about other people, or remembering a past event with my friends, or even just thinking about a movie, or sometimes, I don’t think about anything. I just space out. Knowing my sinful tendencies, sometimes I try to pray before the praise and the message, pray to God for attentiveness and a willing heart and mind. If I find myself spacing in the middle of something, I try to pray a quick prayer for God to help me push out all distractions. During praise, I really try to look at the words and pay attention to the meanings of the song. When I feel like my mind is really being “unfruitful”, I try to remember the cross again and make sure that I am not just lip-praising, but from my heart and from my head, I am thanking God for all His great deeds.  I also take notes during messages to help focus my mind, so my mind doesn’t wander – though sometimes it still does. I love after message reflections or reflective prayer. Often, after Friday night Bible study, they pass out reflection cards which often force me to look over my notes and what I heard and really try to apply it. And after Sunday messages, we’re given a time of personal prayer to apply what we heard. This always helps me grab at least a couple of points for a “fruitful” gain from that message.

What aspects of contemporary Christian pop-culture does this passage warn against?

Sometimes, contemporary Christian pop-culture focuses much too much on emotion, on loud songs and flashy lights, forgetting that even the mind, our intellects need to be engaged. Too much focus on praise and lack on message can also be a danger. I think, too often, contemporary Christian culture tries to stir our hearts – and our tears – as signs of spiritual growth. While our hearts are important, equally, our minds need to be stirred. Our hearts are too fickle to rely on completely. Our minds need to grow and be active, and for that to happen, our minds need to be fed with the Word, with messages and sermons.

By Vincent Hu, InterHigh Mentor, Junior @ UC Berkeley

Gives examples of the mind being “unfruitful” in the midst of spiritual activities. What is the danger of this? Is there evidence of this kind of mindless involvement in spiritual activities in my life?

Verse 13 to 17 talk about how someone can be spiritually praying to God yet be totally disconnected in mind. Though this may sound absurd, it is not an uncommon thing within my life. For instance, during some of the InterHigh praises, in which the songs were upbeat and rocking, I would often find myself fully engaged emotionally, jump and sing to the point of losing my voice, feeling spiritually connected and in touch with the Holy Spirit. However, as soon as the praise ends, I find myself having a hard time remembering the title or even the lyrics of the song! This is a very typical example of my mind being “unfruitful” in the midst of spiritual activities. The danger of this? Well, to the very least I can see it as wasting ten minutes of my life acting as if I were in a rock concert, while thinking that I was praising God. But perhaps what’s more jeopardizing to me was the false sense spiritual comfort I develop through this mindless involvement in a spiritual activity. What it does is that it makes me feel good about where I am in my spiritual journey and creates a feeling that I am connected with God. This feeling (of thinking that I’m close to God) would then discourage my urge to reflect on the reality and perpetuate the same behavior in all the other church related activities. How would that look like? I will be serving at Church purely driven by emotions and the look of others. I will find myself not wanting to do whatever I was doing in the midst of serving at Church, yet unable to just quit because I gave others the impression that I’m a godly person. In addition to effects done to myself, I may potentially stumble other people at Church if my actions somehow convey a sense of reluctance and frustration. It’ll make me a bad witness of Christ in front of other, especially to non-believer who could be turned away by my lack of mental involvement.

In essence, without an engaged mind that constantly involved in conscious, meaningful reasoning and understanding of why I serve God, my heart will not withstand against the tendencies of my sinful nature, which is always self-seeking. A healthy and solid mind can deepen the foundation of my faith and make my heart a good soil for the seed of the word of God (Matt 13).

To apply this passage in my life, I commit not to be lazy and make sure I have a clear understanding of my service before I start doing them. My natural tendency is to not think at all, and I need to fight that and deny my mental laziness in order to develop a fruitful mind.