SPIRITUAL GROWTH — 3 FOUNDATIONAL SPIRITUAL GROWTH TIPS YOU NEED TO KNOW (YES, YOU.)
Do you want to know the 3 foundational spiritual growth tips every Christian should know? Then you need to read this immediately to take your Spiritual Growth to the next level.
Several years ago, I wanted to build a playhouse for my son. So a buddy of mine in construction scrounged up all of the necessary lumber and supplies and delivered them to my home.
I looked at all of the lumber, thought about it a while, and decided “I can do this.”
Turns out, I couldn’t.
Image by stockimages at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
I needed my buddy to swing by and show me how to build the right parts in a specific order, and then put all of those parts together. Because he cares about me and my son, he even spent a Saturday teaching me and helping me get the project built.
Thanks to my friend, my son has enjoyed his playhouse for years.
What’s the first thing that is laid before a house is built?
Go ahead and answer out loud. It’s not a trick question. Before you do anything else to build a house, what is step number one … the first thing that is laid?
It’s the foundation.
Image by scottchan at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
You don’t build walls until the foundation is laid. You don’t put a shingles on a roof until the foundation is laid. You don’t install hardwood flooring, light fixtures or a ceiling fans until the foundation is laid.
The foundation gets things started. It’s what you build upon. It’s the groundwork that everything else is stacked on top of. No building is built without it in place.
No successful spiritual growth plan is built without a foundation in place either.
With many of my spiritual direction clients, I use the A.B.I.D.E. course that I have developed to work with them (one-on-one for five meetings) to get a customized, personal foundation plan in place.
Here are 3 of the 5 foundational spiritual growth tips that we work on together.
Spiritual Growth Tip #1: Assessment. BEGIN with a clear and honest picture of where you are.
Image by Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
We make the entire process of spiritual growth more complicated than it is. Spiritually ambitious people have forged many paths that we can follow. When you follow the path that they have shown, you can experience what they have experienced.
You want a clear picture of where you are today. You want to know the point that your journey is starting at, so you can measure your progress.
Spiritual Growth Tip #2: Be Present. Learn to live in the love of God.
Image by Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Have you ever had a deadline looming over your head, and instead of working on the project that is due, you start to clean or reorganize things around the house? Experts say that the desire to organize is a response to our feelings of unrest over the project. We choose to organize our environment instead of addressing the feelings that we carry inside about the imminent deadline. We use busyness to avoid being present to the project that want (or need) to complete.
In much the same way, you may avoid prayer with busyness. You may fear connecting to God because you feel unsure about His feelings toward you. Of course, you would never say this out loud. But it happens just the same.
One wonderful way to break through this prayer procrastination is the ancient practice of Lectio Divina. My clients use this ancient practice to learn how to be present in the moment and with God.
Spiritual Growth Tip #3: Inventory your Heart.
Image by Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
You want an experience in faith that prompts you to grow more connected to the unique, intimate and specific way that God’s Spirit has of approaching and conversing with you.
More than 400 years ago St. Ignatius of Loyola encouraged prayer-filled mindfulness by proposing what has been called the Daily Examen. The Examen is a technique of prayerful reflection on the events of the day in order to detect God’s presence and to discern His direction for us.
But in this sense Examen is a daily check-in and recalibration of our spiritual identity as unique persons loved and called by God. It is not possible for us to make an examen without confronting our own unique identity in Christ before God.
Did you find this article useful? Thanks!
Sign up here so that you can receive additional articles via email. Those emails are where the work of Christian spiritual growth gets very practical and very personal.
You can tap the follow button, and…
Before you scroll on, will you do me a solid?
Tap the green heart below if you enjoyed this article. I appreciate your support, and it helps others to find the article.