The Spiritual Carnot Cycle

The spiritual Carnot cycle converts spiritual power into God’s work on earth. Every engineer who has completed a thermodynamics class has learned about thermodynamic cycles of engines that convert heat into mechanical work, for example the Carnot cycle, the Brayton cycle, the Otto cycle, and the Rankine cycle. What is the spiritual Carnot cycle?

• A person at a low state of spirituality enters this cycle when he begins to sense the workings of the Holy Spirit in his life, revealing God’s real presence, nature, and character, drawing that person into a closer relationship. The individual’s spiritual fervor begins to increase. 
• As it continues, a spiritual high point is achieved, not in a pejorative sense of inebriation, but a sense of joy and exhilaration in the Lord’s manifest presence. This spiritual mountaintop brings new wonders of the heavenlies, and amazing answers to prayer, increasing and continuing closeness of the believer to the Lord. 
• The next phase begins when the Lord begins to withdraw the sense of His presence. The believer continues in fervent faith, not slowing in behaviors associated with the manifest presence of the Lord. As he works for the Lord, the fruit is still there but not the sense of His presence. The believer must labor in faith. God’s kingdom is built.
• This phase transitions gradually to the final phase of spiritual deflation, called desolation by Ignatius. All sense of God’s presence and power have vanished. The believer reflects wistfully on how wonderful it once was, and wonders if God’s presence will ever return. Ignatius offered several guidelines for this phase. At some point, God begins to work again, and the cycle starts anew. 

There are two aspects of work accomplished during this cycle. Firstly, God’s power is manifested in the presence of unbelievers when the believer speaks and acts in faith. This is all the more powerful when the believer acts knowing what the Lord calls him to, but without sensing His presence. God’s kingdom is built and He is glorified in the world, and enters the lives of those living without Him. Secondly, the believer learns more of God’s nature and character in the contrast of the phases. He desires to become and be more like God, and learns how dependent he is on a God for even the simplest aspect of godliness. 

The unspiritual Carnot cycle accomplishes exactly the opposite. Without diving into detail, it involves people taking their needs (food, housing, medical problems) to the government. The government provides, resulting both in glorification of human institutions, and codependency between individuals and government. There is no spiritual growth, but the reverse. 

The work of spiritual cycles is not some mystical, mysterious secret. God exhibited His plan in plain sight for all of recorded history. Doubters may whine about God’s unfairness, but He is being gracious in revealing His ways. Although our actions should always exhibit the fruit of the Spirit, our spiritual walk will be stronger as we recognize and cooperate with the Lord, in the way He chooses to deal with us.