Blog by Alan Fadling

I love the spiritual discipline of reading Christian classics. It’s been a gift for most of my adult life. I’ve searched for and mined centuries-old wisdom from two thousand years of the life of the church across the globe. This practice helps me remember that Christ’s church is so much bigger than my own little experience of it over my few decades of life.

Some of my favorite spiritual classics are collections of letters written by spiritual directors, as well as personal journals that help me get to know a particular spiritual figure in Christian history. I also love retreat talks and sermons. They’re often written for a specific group with their own concerns, and that focus helps me recognize something of my own story.

Awhile back, I found a book called Spiritual Conferences by Frederick Faber. He was a nineteenth-century English pastor and hymn writer who served within the Roman Catholic tradition. His insights about prayer and the love of God spoke very personally to me.

I found his words a life-giving guide in my intention to serve Christ in a world that prizes speed, visibility, and constant output. What he says feels both unsettling and strangely freeing. I’ve gathered a couple of passages from this book that I’d like to share and comment on. The essence of his message in these passages is that life with God grows best at an unhurried pace.

When the Saints “Did Few Things”

 In this first passage, listen to Faber’s startling claim:

 “The saints, as a class, did few things. Their lives were by no means crammed with works, even with works of mercy. They made a point of keeping considerable reserves of time for themselves and for the affairs of their own souls. … Their lives seem very empty of facts, disappointingly empty.”*

That line caught me off guard when I first read it: The saints did few things. Their lives were “disappointingly empty.” That pushes against a lot of our assumptions about productivity. It rubs against our modern leadership instincts. We often imagine that good work means a full life. A full calendar, a full inbox, a full weekend.

But the saints kept reserves of time. They let their practices remain few and simple. They weren’t driven by publicity or productivity. Their activity was “far more contemplative than we are inclined to suspect,” Faber says.

We would probably look at their days and think, They don’t get much done. And, to be fair, I really don’t think that these saints made it their goal to do less and less each year. While some chose a more contemplative, perhaps even monastic life, many had significant apostolic ministries.

Their primary aim was not doing less but becoming more—more attuned, more surrendered, more available to the life of God. What might have looked like a reduction from the outside was, in truth, a refinement: a letting go of what was unnecessary so that what remained could carry greater weight, greater presence. Their lives took on a kind of holy potency, where even small acts were filled with a quiet depth and richness, as though enlivened by something eternal. It was not that they disappeared but that their lives became more transparent to Another. Perhaps this is what John the Baptist was gesturing toward when he said, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30)—not a diminishment of self, but a recentering of self so that the life of Christ might quietly become the truest life within one’s own.

What might have looked like emptiness was actually availability. It was a spaciousness for God. Their hiddenness became fertile ground where deep roots could grow. They trusted that fruitfulness comes not from frantic effort but from abiding presence.

So I wonder, for myself and for you: Where might God be inviting us to practice this kind of holy spaciousness? Where might doing fewer things be an expression of leadership courage rather than leadership neglect?

Faber says it plainly elsewhere:

 “The saints were [those] who did less than other people, but who did what they had to do a thousand times better.” †

There’s a quiet beauty in that. A kind of focused fidelity. A refusal to be spread thin.

Chewing Grace Instead of Gulping It Down

 A second passage from Faber moves from activity to something even more intimate—how we receive grace itself. He writes:

“We are too much given to swallowing our graces without chewing them. … We do not extract from them the sweetness or the medicinal virtue which God has deposited in them. We are too quick with them. … I suspect half of our lukewarmness comes from impetuosity and precipitation, from human activity, and a want of slowness before God.” ‡

I bet you haven’t used the words impetuosity and precipitation in a sentence recently (unless maybe you were talking about a rainstorm). These are eighteenth-century words for the problem of hurry. Hurry is not just a modern thing!

Faber’s imagery is jarring, isn’t it? We gulp grace. We swallow it whole and hurry on. We don’t stay with grace long enough to let it nourish us or reshape us. Faber even suggests that our lukewarmness comes not from too little activity; rather, it comes from too much hurry.

I still see that in myself. God will give me a word of encouragement or clarity, and before I’ve even had time to savor it, I’m already turning it into a blog post, a talk, a podcast script, some shareable insight. I am too quick to convert grace into productivity.

Christian leaders can become professional gulpers of grace. But grace isn’t fast food. It’s meant to be savored, tasted, slowly received. Faber says we’re missing half of what grace carries simply because we move too fast to notice.

So let me ask you gently: What grace in your life right now needs more chewing? What gift from God have you rushed past that might yet become medicine if you let it linger on your tongue a little longer?

This is the quiet countercultural act of ministry—slowing down enough to savor what God gives.

For Reflection: 

• As you read, where did you feel a sense of recognition—either a quiet yes or a gentle resistance?
• What might that response be revealing about your current rhythms of activity, rest, and receptivity to grace?
• What is one place in your life where you could practice holy spaciousness this week, leaving a margin, or savoring a moment you would normally rush past?