When I think of different aspects of personal improvement, there is none that more thoroughly impacts happiness than that of spiritual growth. It leads to resilience against anxiety and fear, confidence in each new day, and the layering of peaceful joy into the soul.
Life’s big questions find answers and continued perspective through sustained comfort sitting with them: where did I come from, why am I here, and what happens to me and my loved ones after death.
Habits of spiritual growth can be classified by the nature of the connection to God through these 3 categories:
- direct communion (self)
- holy scripture (people of the past)
- family & a church community (people of the present)
My intent here is to briefly share some examples of habits that can be formed in each area to strengthen spiritual growth.
Direct Communion
I wrote last week about prayer and fasting. Here is a list of habits that form a direct communion with God:
- Prayer
- Fasting
- Meditation
- Exploration of nature; the Great Outdoors
- Listening to uplifting music
These experiences are best found by slowing down.
Holy Scripture
Perhaps the most commonly ignored form of spiritual growth is scripture study. The holy scriptures represent man’s greatest attempt at preserving the best God-given wisdom since the beginning of time. How can anyone consider themselves educated if they have not diligently searched the words of such a book?
The scriptures deliver the depth of thought they proclaim to be. There is no other volume of written words so intricate, beautiful, and relevant to daily circumstances as the lessons delivered by God’s prophets through the ages.
As scriptures are studied and lived, their lessons not only become factual knowledge but their inherent virtue becomes woven into the souls of those who diligently seek that divine upgrade. It can come in no other way.
Family & A Church Community
While the other two categories involve personal action, spiritual growth is never complete without a focus on improving real relationships in both family and community life.
Family
Simple spiritual growth activities in the family make an enormous impact on family unity, appreciation, and preparedness for life’s ups and downs.
In my home, I have weekly family home evenings with my children where we spend time talking about each other’s weekly highlights and plans, share a gospel message, and pray together. We also have frequent time for fun things and memory building.
A Church Community
Likewise, participation in a church community is vital to spiritual growth. Churches are the only place people go to speak freely of spiritual things and to learn together. In other venues, personal ambitions almost always prevail the scene: gaining knowledge, getting tasks done, buying/selling something, winning a game, finding a purposeful connection to someone else.
People come together in churches to be helpful to one another, to serve, to edify, to understand each other, and to uplift. They come to feel the Spirit that attends ambition-less meetings so designed.
It is worrisome that church attendance has dropped so significantly in our society in recent decades. It is unclear to me where people are finding regular and consistent opportunities for spiritual growth. Most are not.
An hour or two a week of fellowship with a church community is not a lot to ask. If you have lost the thread of religious observance in your family, I encourage you to reconsider the hole it has left in your spiritual growth.
I know that returning to church has made an exponential difference in my life.
What else? What other habits do you recommend for spiritual growth?
Comments on this entry are closed.