A truly vibrant Christian community is one wherein the majority of the members desire to grow spiritually. Many are the questions that they raise, such as: Is there any point to my life? Is this all there is? How do I get closer to God? Whoever has asked these or similar questions has really been asking “How do I spiritually grow and become the person God intended when He created me?” Questions like these are the starting point for any real spiritual growth and development. Yet many people feel that the word spiritual is too lofty or removed from their everyday experience. They think that spirituality deals with something beyond them, with something reserved for a chosen few.
The Gospels tell us that Jesus invited ordinary people to follow him. Like people today, they were filled with questions about the meaning of their lives and about how they related to God. People today still are struggling with these same questions. Jesus still invites them to follow him and learn from him how to answer their own questions. John reports this in his gospel (John 1:35-39):
The next day John the Baptizer was here again with two of his disciples. As he watched Jesus walk by, he said, “Look! There is the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard what he said, and followed Jesus. When Jesus turned around and noticed them following him, he asked them, “What are you looking for?”
If people are to grow spiritually, they must be in touch with the fundamental realities of their lives, with where they are going, and with where they really want to go. Frequent critical reflection is the key to being in touch with the direction of our lives. It prevents us from taking things for granted.
We need not only to look at the crises in our lives, but also on a regular basis to stop and look at the small, ordinary, routine events of life. This reflection puts us in touch with our hungers and, if done with faith, opens us to the offer that God makes in Jesus Christ. God’s offer is not a solution to human problems but a commitment to be with us as we work through them.
So to grow spiritually, people need to recognize their deepest hungers. Psychologists tell us that all our psychological hungers or desires can be reduced to four: the desire to love and be loved, the desire to know, the desire to grow, and the desire to live forever. These four desires ultimately can be satisfied only by God. But people do not always recognize and acknowledge that the deepest reality of life is God and that these desires are really a sign of their hunger for God. We, as human beings, like to think that we can find answers to life’s questions on our own – that we don’t need help and are self-sufficient. Oh Contraire!