“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” —A.W. Tozer
When I was in college, I read the preceding quote from the theologian/philosopher A.W. Tozer. The substance was so profound I have never forgotten its message almost 15 years later. It continues to spring up again and again in my mind on a regular basis.
I realize spirituality can be a very touchy topic that arouses countless strong opinions, intellectual arguments, and far too many unspeakable emotional wounds. Nevertheless, I believe the quote above holds true. There is nothing more central to our lives than our understanding of spirituality. And it is a conversation we ought to engage in far more often than we do.
Whether we have intentionally pursued a personal spirituality or not, our beliefs have a profound impact on our lives. Consciously or subconsciously, it influences us in countless ways. Consider how it impacts our understanding of…
- Ourselves. Does God care about me? Is He mad at me or pleased with me? If there is no God, who am I? And where did I orginate?
- Others. Are all lives equal? If so, on what basis? What is my responsibility to care for others?
- Minimalism. If we have removed the pursuit of worldly possessions from our affections, with what will we replace it?
- The world around us. In what specific ways should we care about the world and the environment around us? Is our motivation in this regard more significant than survival of our species? And if so, how do we as humans responsibly interact with it?
- Morality. Is there a moral set of truth for the universe established from a higher power? Or is morality determined by each individual?
- Evil. What am I to understand about the evil and suffering in the world? Is it there for a reason? To what extent should I try to counteract it?
- Money. Does the universe give money/status to some and not others? Or is money/status earned by the individual? What should I do with it when I obtain it? Do I hold any responsibility to care for those with less?
- Afterlife. Is there life after death? Is death something to be feared or welcomed? And either way, how should I be preparing for it today?
No doubt, our understanding of spirituality carries great influence on our lives. For that reason, one of the most significant journeys we can ever embark upon is the exploration of it.
I understand fully this community is made up of readers from every imaginable religious/non-religious background. I am so very thankful for that reality. And I should be quick to mention this post is not an endorsement of any specific religion. Instead, my hope is only to prompt each of us to further consider the role of spirituality in our everyday lives. And cause us to joyfully embrace the journey rather than shy away from it.
Because of the important role it plays, you will never regret any time spent furthering your understanding of the Universe. Whether you have never tried, have tried but given up, or spend time everyday seeking one specific God, let me offer seven beginning steps that are central to our personal exploration of spirituality.
A Beginner’s Guide to Exploring Spirituality
1. Respect those that have gone before. The quest to understand spirituality is as old as humanity itself. Billions have gone before and have spent countless hours seeking spirituality. Don‘t overlook their efforts. Consider their findings and their writings—even those outside the religion you have become accustomed to.
2. Your journey must be your own. You alone must be the decision-maker for your view of God. You should not blindly accept the teachings of another (even your closest mentor or parent). Your heart must ring true and your spirit must rejoice in your spirituality—or it is worthless.
3. Start right where you are. We all have special gifts of character: compassion, laughter, self-discipline, love, etc. Use them as your starting point. Are you facing a trial in life (disease, loss, rejection)? Use it as motivation to further pursue your understanding of spirituality. Lao-tzu once said, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” He was right in every regard. Start your journey with whatever first step makes the most sense to you.
4. Ask God for help. By this I mean, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain by making the request. If there is a God, He may answer your prayer. And if there is no God, the process of making the request will still work to help focus your senses and desire.
5. Practice, practice, practice. Like everything else in life, spiritual growth is mastered through practice. If you don’t find your answers after your first few steps, take some more in a different direction. It will require time, effort, and energy. But given its influence on our lives, it is always worth the effort in the end.
6. Don’t be afraid of unanswered questions. Although leaving questions unanswered may sound contrary to the goal of the pursuit, we should not be afraid of them. These unanswered questions will cause some to forever abandon the journey. And while our spirituality should make sense of our heart‘s deepest questions, it would seem unreasonable to believe our minds could successfully fathom all the mysteries of the universe.
7. Be wary of “everyone is right” thinking. If there is no God, there is no God. If there is a God, He is something specific. Personally, I am skeptical of the thinking that says God can change from one person to another—that philosophy crumbles under the weight of its own logic. God is who God is. And it‘s our responsibility to successfully find Him.
Again, I realize fully this journey is going to look different for every single one of us. Spirituality is a highly personal matter and will likely result in different outcomes. This is not a post that endorses any specific religion. It is simply a post of encouragement and a reminder this journey is important.
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I do not typically moderate comments too closely (unless they turn offensive). But I might make a suggestion for this post. In the comments below, I would be interested to hear about your personal journey toward spirituality. How did it begin? And how did you arrive at your understanding? I think this conversation will be more helpful and encouraging than a specific argument made for choosing your view.
Image: overgraeme
Marya says
I do believe in God and the after life and I do believe in human dignity and being nice to others. But I do not believe in any particular religion, especially when I see how each religion was or has been used by the hypocrites.
Gillian says
As a happy spiritual atheist with interest in Buddhism and Be Here Now, I encourage you to reflect on how using male pronouns for god affects our view of ourselves, others, and the world around us. Constant cultural references to a male god are not innocuous; they are an insidious aspect of gender hierarchy. While I am sure you discussed a male god with no ill intent, it is important to be aware of the beliefs we are perpetuating. For anyone who thinks this is a ridiculous consideration, please ask yourself why you are comfortable excluding half the population (and probably most races) from our divine imagery.
Marilene Hunzeker says
I grew up in a house with two religions. My parents were Catholic and my sibling were LDS (Mormon). My parents always taught us about God and how we didn’t have to be afraid or discouraged about life because the God of Israel would be with us every step of the way, even though my parents taught us about a loving Father in Heaven and his son Jesus Christ they never forced us to go to any church, they just let us choose our own paths.
My siblings became LDS, and my parents and I followed their foostep later in life and joined the “Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints”. I was raised in Brazil and later in life I was called to serve a LDS mission in the United States. I was called to serve in Florida for 18 months.
I arrived at my understanding of spirituality while I was serving my mission. Three months into my mission I received the horrible news from home that my dear and oldest brother had been murdered, my world collapsed for a moment. The pain, the anger, the despair and the doubts started to creep in into my soul. For the first time in my life I started to question God and my believe in him but not for long. During my darkest hour I felt his Holy Spirit comforting me with all the love he had to offer, a love so powerful that I will never be able to explain.
I just knew that I wanted others to feel the same love, the same peace that I felt. I grew up so much spiritually by forgetting about myself and focusing on the spiritual needs of those around me. I loved teaching about our Savior and brother Jesus Christ and about our loving Heavenly Father.
I will always miss my dear brother who departed so soon from me. I will be forever grateful that my parents planted in my heart in an early age that I was loved by God and that I was never alone. This knowledge has been my anchor in this life.
This scripture in the Book of Mormon relates well my feelings towards my spirituality “…, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.” Helaman 5:12
Vappu says
-I had a Christian up-bringing
-Lost my childhood faith and was fooled by syncretism (all faiths lead to the same God) and new age for more than a decade.
-Realized that Christianity is the only faith (not religion!) that leads to true God, the only faith that says you are saved by grace alone, while all the other religions say you must work your own salvation/enlightenment.
-I still didn’t put all my trust in Jesus Christ. he was my plan B, my last hope. So I went through a trial that I later saw was a huge blessing. I had a brain tumor in the pituitary gland and I was vomiting and sick for a year. It got so bad I was in the hospital in an IV drip for fluids. I was so tired that I would fall asleep in the middle of the day very day and I felt like I was barely alive.
-One night at home in my bed I realized there was nothing I could do. I wanted to die but I couldn’t because I have a child to take care of. I was backed to a corner with no way out. So I just said: “Lord, here I am, take this mess and do whatever you want. My life is yours.”
-At that moment I was filled with the Holy Spirit (I didn’t even know that this could happen or what it was) and all my sickness went away and I felt incredible supernatural peace. Next morning I woke up, like a new person. I told my husband: “I think I was healed”. The next day I had a scheduled MRI scan and when the doctor called me she said there was no tumor whatsoever to be found.
-After this I really began to walk with Jesus Christ every day and he is leading me and helping me in wonderful and sometimes miraculous ways and my trust is in him, with all my life and everything in it. He is a living God and everything the Bible says is true.
Marilene Hunzeker says
Vappu, thanks for sharing this wonderful experience. I am so grateful that your tumor disappeared. I believe in miracles and you were blessed with a wonderful one. I wish you a long and healthy life :)
Anna D. says
Well said;)
Bethany @ Journey to Ithaca says
Wow, thank you for starting this discussion, Josh!
The topic of spirituality has always fascinated me, and I love to hear other people’s perspectives on it. I don’t think anything in life is as important as the search for truth.
I grew up attending various Protestant churches, and there are a number of aspects of Christianity that I still agree with. There were a few things, though, that didn’t sit well with me, so I haven’t attended church in years.
Last winter was an extremely dark and challenging time for me, and I was blessed to have a friend who was there for me the entire time. When I asked about it, this friend shared their spiritual perspective, which is much more eclectic, and more abstract. They explained Zen to me, and recommended a couple of books by Thich Nhat Hanh. I found that this fit well with the understandings that I maintained from Christianity, and helped me to learn and grow during such a difficult time in my life.
I guess my most central thoughts/understandings (I don’t like the word “beliefs,” because that implies that they won’t or can’t change) are that the Universe is larger and more amazing and complex than we could ever comprehend, and that everything is motivated by either love or fear. I think that love and God may well be the same thing, and at our core, love is also who we are.
Mary Ann says
I learned of religion through nine years of parochial school. I learned of spirituality through twenty years of rearing children and twenty years of nursing those with disease. I didn’t understand religion until I understood spirituality. I didn’t understand spirituality until I understood myself. I didn’t understand myself until I understood my children. It is through my children that I truly learned what spirituality meant.
Diaga says
My spiritual journey began 3 years ago when my twin sister suddenly died of an aneurism. We were 17 at the time. I had been suffering from panic attacks lately when I would begin to contemplate the idea of death. So one day I prayed to god and asked him to help me understand and overcome my fear of death. And left it at that. 2 weeks later my sister died on the same exact day my mothers sister whom she was named after had died years before. The day she went into the hospital was on the 13th and she died a week later on the 20th. I began to look for answers and meaning in all that had happened. I was full of grief, pain, I was confused but I knew that god had a purpose for all of this. So it began with the numbers. 13 symbolizes death and it is the tarot card of the scorpio which we are. It doesn’t always mean a physical death but just an ending of something. And the number 20 which represents judgement, rebirth, starting anew. I knew this was a message to reassure me she was ok. But it hasn’t been until recently that I realized that it was instruction for my life as well. I died as well that day. My whole identity was wrapped into us I never experienced being an individual up until her death. I had no concept of it. And the world was a totally different place for me. I was ackward, alone, and full of pain so I suppressed it with drugs and alcohol for about a year and a half. My life was going down hill. Once I started to let my self grieve and feel the pain of losing her it transformed me. I found myself and in doing that I found god and I can see what life and death is about. They are just different aspects of the same thing. We are the the percieved and the perceiver. We are love, we are god, we are consciousness becoming conscious of itself. It’s a never ending cycle. Matter cannot be created nor destroyed this is what god is! I don’t hold to anyone religion they all attempting to lead us to the same thing. God is infinite and I personally think it’s ignorant to limit ourselves to one idea or belief about god. Sorry if I babbled on but I feel amazing everytime I think about it. God is you and god is me. And we are love. Be blessed !
Carrie says
My heart goes out to you for the loss of your sister. May you find further healing and success on your spiritual journey. I hope I can help a bit by offering some food for thought: We must let religions speak for themselves, and some of them would not agree with your statement that “they are all attempting to lead us to the same thing.”
Let me give an example from the point of view of Judaism and Christianity. These two religions consider the Bible (just the Tanakh portion in the case of most Jews) their highest authority on spiritual truth. If you become familiar with the Bible, you will notice that while the God of the Bible is the universal Creator and espouses universal moral virtues, He is also a specific entity with a name (usually translated into English as LORD), and He unequivocally forbids His followers to worship any other gods. He asks pointed questions like, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?” (Job 38:4), gets frustrated at the futility of idol worship (see Isaiah 44:12-20), and challenges false gods to prove themselves (see Isaiah 41:21-24). The Bible is attempting to lead us to this specific entity (the LORD, our Creator), and part of that means rejecting other religions. It’s sort of like when you get married — you expect your spouse to limit himself in certain ways to you alone, not in order to be ignorant or intolerant, but to be faithful.
I’m not saying this to criticize your beliefs or your understanding of spiritual reality; you are certainly free to understand it in your own way. What I’m getting at is that if you accept, for example, pantheism (everything is God), be warned that you are rejecting Judaism and Christianity, and therefore rejecting the God of the Bible as well as Jesus’s own teachings about God. There’s really no way to get around it.
Even though you can’t accept all religions at once, here’s the good news: You can and should treat people of all religions with acceptance, love and respect. At least, that’s what my religion teaches. :) You are still young, and hopefully have many years ahead of you to explore, learn, and solidify your perspective. I wish you all truth and joy, and I pray that you will one day be reunited with your sister.
Patrick says
What comes into our minds when we think about God is NOT the most important thing about us. The most important thing about us is what WE think is most important at any given time in our lives.
You acknowledge that spirituality is a “touchy topic” that could arouse painful “emotional wounds” for your readers, yet you proceed anyway. That is interesting.
At risk of voicing “strong opinions” and “intellectual arguments,” your post is riddled with assumptions rooted in a particular understanding of spirituality that alienates some of your readers, including me. You are welcome to your beliefs, but your unsolicited “Beginners Guide to Exploring Spirituality” is condescending. Do you believe that regular readers of a blog about minimalism and intentional living lead unexamined lives? Do you think people who choose to swim upstream against the dominant culture lack spiritual curiosity, insight, or moral courage? Unfortunately, you have underestimated the sincerity, intelligence, and diversity of your audience.
Barbara Robinette says
Your honest questions are refreshing…and to celebrate our diversity is also beautiful.
Melissa McIntyre says
Your second sentence reads “The most important thing about us is what WE think is most important at any given time in our lives.” Hmmm….. that’s interesting that you typed that and believe that and then go on to criticize Joshua for the very thing that your sentence just said. Isn’t he a part of your “WE” statement ? It’s his blog, isn’t he entitled to say what HE thinks is most important at any given time in his life? Do you get just as offended when he writes posts geared toward people who are new to minimalism? Do you think “Gosh, Joshua! I already KNOW all of this. You have seriously “underestimated the sincerity, intelligence, and diversity of your audience.” ? I’m guessing probably not. It sounds like what you really MEANT to say was “The most important thing about us is what WE think is most important at any given time in our lives….. unless ” I ” disagree with what you are saying OR it involves “God” OR something else ” I ” don’t agree with.” Do you see how your sentence makes no sense when it is followed by you criticizing Joshua for stating what HE thinks is most important at any given time in his life? On HIS blog. That you don’t HAVE to read. If you find it irrelevant to you and your situation, then don’t read it. Or agree to disagree. But making contradictory statements because you don’t like what was said just makes you sound dumb, which I doubt you are, but that is how your comment came across.
Eva says
Is it really our responsibility to find Him? I thought it was our responsibility to convert and seek and God’s grace that we can be found by Him. But this question about who does what is difficult. We have responsibility, the need of initiative is there, but the question is are we giving respons, do we answer God’s calling? Do we listen?
Linda says
I really liked your last sentence, “God is who God is. And it‘s our responsibility to successfully find Him.” Profoundly simple and true at the same time. Amazing how many people don’t “get” that. For me finding God happened through finding Jesus. He did not say, “No one comes to the Father except through SPIRITUALITY.” Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father except through ME.” He did not say, “One cannot enter the Kingdom unless he is SPIRITUAL,” but rather He said, “One cannot enter the Kingdom unless he is BORN AGAIN.” I asked Jesus to become not only my Savior, but my Lord four decades ago. I have never looked back. Life has been such an exciting “spiritual” :-) journey ever since then. I highly recommend Jesus for becoming the only kind of Spiritual that will matter in eternity. Blessings, Linda