The Spiritual Journey

Here’s what I believe about the spiritual journey: God creates each of us with a purpose and a unique set of gifts that we can use to fulfill our purpose in the world. Each of us as we were created to be is needed in the world right now. We each have a contribution to make and that contribution is essential to God’s plan to bring in the kingdom.

God is always calling us home to him. As we move towards God, answering his call to love, to be close and to serve, all that our families and culture have put on us, all that we have assumed to be ours that does not fit us, begins to be transformed by the Holy Spirit; all this stuff which is not about us is gradually let go. As this happens—as all this stuff that comes between us and God drops off—we are freer and freer to be who we were created to be and, at the same time, we move closer to God because the obstacles, the “gods,” between us are getting fewer and fewer.

Our capacity to love God grows and grows, as does our ability to fulfill who we were created to be. As we increase in love for God, ourselves and others, out of that growing ability to love comes the realization of who we are and what we are meant to contribute to this world. Then we do what we were created to do out of our love for God. The action of all those who participate in God’s love is what brings in the kingdom of God on earth.

Every person has the potential to make this journey into the love of God in order to be transformed into who we were created to be. The true beginning of this journey is our “YES!” to the call from God, our willingness to surrender our lives to him, to put her first in our lives or to love him above all. There are different ways to think about this; if you don’t like the word surrender, pick a word that expresses this same call and response in you. If you think I use God as a masculine figure too much, change God into the Mother.

The essential thing is to take the first step on the journey, to say “YES!” with all that you are. The Lord will draw you along the journey, offering just what you need at any time, transforming your false self into the surrendered and created, true self.

Jesus said, “Follow me.”[1] Will you follow him into a close and dynamic relationship with God? Will you allow the Holy Spirit to transform you into the person that God needs on the local or world stage right now? The key to a life lived with God is your willingness to go where he leads you.

Here are some questions to ponder that might help you see what and where God is calling you:

1.   What in you truly belongs, what is truly natural to you?

2.   What in you – attitudes, ways of thinking, presumptions – have you adopted that really belong to our culture?

3.   What do you dream of?

4.   What is your ideal job/profession?

5.   What is God calling you to do, to be?

6.   Given your talents and skills, how might you use them more effectively for the good of all creation?

7.   What do you really want right now? What do you really want in every situation?

8.   Is there a persistent call in you that you are ignoring?

Living with these questions might point you in the divine direction, or bring you into a deeper relationship with God, towards God who wants to enfold you and mold you and love you and direct you.