Growing spiritually 

some guidelines by Nick Ktorides

The Ministry Team has been doing some thinking recently, about getting fit!   Not so much physically fit – the gym or Bazza’s boot camp in Kirtlington may help out there. No, we were thinking more about spiritual fitness.

Writing to Timothy, St Paul (to paraphrase) says: ‘Physical exercise has some value, but spiritual exercise is valuable in every way, holding promise for the life now and the life to come. (1 Tim 4:8)

So what is spiritual exercise, exactly?  Well, we like to think that engaging in the collective worship of the church – its liturgy, singing spiritual songs and hymns, and participating in the Eucharist, is all part of our spiritual life.

But it doesn’t need to begin or end on a Sunday!

Getting spiritually fit is a pattern for everyday life – which, rather than making us too heavenly minded to be any earthly good, helps us gain a better understanding of the world we live in, as well as preparing us for the life to come.  Developing our spiritual muscles, we might say, gives us the strength and resilience to deal better with what life may bring across our paths. But how and where might we start?

Well, we suggest three key exercises:

1)  Learning to talk with God – in prayer.    

 ‘Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name….. (Matthew 6)

Prayer may appear a challenge, especially when thought of as a performance to be kept up, rather than the building up of relationship. Seeing it as talking with God our Father, as our true selves, about issues that concern or affect us, can turn prayer into a deep well of blessing.

So, we’ve gleaned some attitudes and approaches that give us some down-to-earth parameters for reaching out to our Father in heaven.

For example, we wouldn’t choose to run a marathon too early in our quest to get fit – we’d be pretty discouraged at only getting half-way round the block, and might be tempted to give up.  So then, being aware of how spiritually unfit we are to meet with God in prayer, while knowing that Jesus has made a way for us to do just that, is not a bad place to start.

At the same time it’s important to know that God desires that we come to him as we really are.  King David, coming to realise this through prayer, wrote: ‘You have searched me, Lord, and know me…you perceive my thoughts from afar. You are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue, you, Lord, know it completely’. (Psalm 139)

Feigning our spiritual fitness before God, who already knows us fully, wastes our energy, rather than getting us fit.

In fact dropping our self-defence and pretence before God gives us – in the words of Henri Nouwen  – ‘….a new freedom where praying becomes a joy, a spontaneous reaction to the world and people around you.’

Seeing prayer as a joy may not be where we start out from, but it’s a milestone to look forward to. As Cardinal Basil Hume reminds us, prayer can be ‘hard work’. In the language of prayer as exercise, it can be uphill.  But Hume also speaks of our perseverance in prayer as being pleasing to God, bringing a purification of our motives and our faith, leading us to trust less in self, and more in God.

Thankfully, there are many approaches that can help us, when prayer does seem uphill.

Lectio Divina (a sacred reading of the bible), is one example where prayer is directed using the Bible through a four-step process:

1) Lectio (reading a passage);

2) Meditatio (reflective meditation on the passage);       

3) Oratio (engaging with the passage in responsive prayer);                             

4) Contemplatio (resting contemplatively).

Another is Ignatius’ Examen – ‘going forward by looking back’ – an approach to prayer looking back specifically over the events of the day and responding in five reflective steps:

1) Give thanks – for specific things; 

2) Petition – seek and ask for discernment about self; 

3) Review – how we have responded to the day’s events;

4) Repent – for where we have fallen short;

5) Review – preparation for going forward, in a transformed tomorrow;

Yet another is The Prayer of Lament. We find throughout scripture, and particularly in the Book of Psalms, in Job and Lamentations, that people came to God to complain!  The Lament in the Psalms is often framed in four stages, as in Psalm 22:  

1) Address – ‘My God, my God.’

2) Complaint – ‘Why have you forsaken me?’

3) Request – ‘Lord, be not far from me.’

4) Expression of Trust – ‘Yet you are holy.’

Having spoken into the lives of men and women facing every conceivable challenge throughout the generations, we have in the scriptures a vast compendium of human experience – mapping out the terrain of almost every eventuality we are likely to face, as we run our race in our day.  The scriptures thus open up a multiplicity of approaches and the potential for transformative encounters with God in prayer.

This leads into our next exercise proper:

2) Learning to hear God speaking – through the scriptures.  

 “My son (my daughter), do not forget my teaching, but keep my commands in your heart…..”  (Proverbs 3).

The Bible is a library in itself – 66 books written across the centuries by people who were  in communion and communication with God.  Through divine inspiration they wrote words of truth, wisdom and direction, in both the Old and New Testaments.  The Bible is a rich life-giving resource, available to us today, in ways previous generations didn’t have. 

It’s worth reminding ourselves that the scriptures are not simply texts with words that help us think more positively. They have spoken into the lives of men and women facing multiple challenges throughout the generations down to our own age – grounding their  hopes, thoughts and attitudes in reality. 

Ultimately and vitally the strength for us to face and come out the other side of our challenges resides in the reality of the personhood of God, who reveals himself and his purposes for us in the words of scripture. 

God’s revelation to us in the scriptures culminates in the life and teaching of Jesus, who is spoken of as Ó Logos, The Word.

It might seem strange to picture Jesus as ‘The Word’, until seen in contrast to others who spoke and recorded the words of God’s truth through divine inspiration. They did so as an utterance which pointed ahead of themselves and beyond what they in their own lives were able fully to demonstrate or live up to.

Isaiah, for example, on seeing God and recognising his unworthiness, cried out,  ‘Woe is me, for I am ruined. I am a man of unclean lips, but my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty. (Isaiah 6)

But Jesus is immeasurably more than the spoken word of God. Jesus is the very embodiment of God’s thoughts, purposes and actions, perfectly and completely brought to life in himself; the one who declares himself to be ‘the way, the truth, and the life’.  This helps us to understand what is meant by Jesus, The ‘Word’,  through whom we are able to visualise the unseen God.

In coming to the Bible as the revelation of God, culminating in Jesus the Word, we find distilled truth imbued with life-transforming power that strengthens and steers us in the way to go.

This leads to the next step in our quest for spiritual fitness through the guidance of God’s Spirit.

3) Learning to follow God  – through the leading of the Holy Spirit.

 ‘The Spirit of truth… will guide you into all the truth.’  (John 16)

The Holy Spirit, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, came on all who heard the gospel message. As we’ve seen, our spiritual exercises are not separate and distinct, but connect and tie up one with another. Prayer with Scripture and Scripture with Prayer. The same is true with the Holy Spirit.

Jesus said, ‘The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have said to you.’ (John 14)

The Holy Spirit reminds us of Jesus’s words and is able to bring these things to mind at appropriate times of need.  Knowing the scriptures, then, goes hand in hand with the Holy Spirit’s guidance. 

Paul writes of the Spirit ‘helping us in our weaknesses,’ and says: ‘For we do not know what to pray for, as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groaning too deep for words.’ (Romans 8). Similarly, the challenge of prayer and the guidance of the Holy Spirit to pray are intimately connected.

So, there we have our three spiritual exercises which, taken together, might be seen as an example of what the Bible calls ‘a three-cord strand that is not easily broken’. In union with the purposes of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, they are able to bring us to a place of spiritual health and wellbeing.  Like the pieces of a puzzle coming together, we – with perseverance – may finally be able to picture ourselves running that proverbial spiritual marathon.

Resources

Elsewhere on this website (under ‘Prayers for Every Day’) there are some resources available to help with our spiritual growth.  There are  links that can be used on a smart phone, laptop, tablet, or home computer – whichever you use. Some are free and some you subscribe and pay for. You can dip in and out in your own time and pace, alone or coming together with friends, or even as a small group to study or pray together.