What is Spirituality?
Spiritual Health is often an overlooked aspect of our wellness journey.
Spirituality is where we find MEANING – it’s like the definition of PURPOSE. It’s knowing the significance of our life in correlation to the world around us.
It involves our feelings, our mind, will and emotions – it is our set of beliefs, values and way of life.
We are designed for continual emotional and spiritual growth – a continual part of life’s journey that ends only upon our last breath.
The journey path of this transformation looks different for each of us.
It is not until we have acceptance and understanding of our connection to the world and place that we have in it that we can be satisfied beyond short-term happiness.
In my belief, everyone has the same PURPOSE (to be molded and transformed into the image of Christ and to live out the desires of His heart) but not everyone has the same path to journey along in achieving the goals to being in purpose.
We GET to keeping becoming for all of our life – the transformation is a continual process of life that evolves in our CONNECTION.
We are created to be connected – connected to something bigger than ourselves. We are created for significance (that’s why we all long for it).
The WAY in which the Lord leads our travels in this LIFE is the WHAT & HOW our paths are different.
What is SPIRITUAL Health?
Its a pulse check to beating in operation of being in PURPOSE for what you were created for being.
Without being in operation of intended purpose, we feel disconnected to something bigger than ourselves – we feel isolated, lonely, and out of place.
Spiritual health is not the same as religion. It’s not just being in check of rules and regulations. It’s about being at peace within your life. It’s about when the obstacles of life come against you that you have HOPE for standing.
The journey of wellness in spirit starts with understanding the values on which you stand. It is knowing the IDENTITY of your being, CONNECTION to your PURPOSE. When you know who you are, and whose you are, you know what to do.
- Identity (in whom or what are you imagined as). I believe that we are created by God, made in His image, and through the renewal of the mind, I am to be transformed to grow into the image of Christ.
- Connect with your PURPOSE. Without purpose, we lose hope – we feel aimless, we seek quick-fixes to temporary ill feelings. We feel directionless. Without a decided direction, we are wanders in this great world of life.
- It takes understanding SELF-REFLECTION about NEEDS, VALUES and BELIEFS
- Flowing in action of your said beliefs. Are your daily activities a reflection of your declared words – living in alignment (of action) of your defined PURPOSE.
Spirituality is the PRACTICE OF BELIEFS – it’s living out in operation of what a person says he/she believes.
Living OUT our spirituality is measured in actions – it’s revealed in our RESPONSES to LIFE – it shows in BEHAVIOR the core of what we believe by where we yield in submission to AUTHORITY.
And we need KNOWLEDGE and ACTION for BECOMING.
At different times in LIFE, we journey with different people in order to grow in faith, learn our “life lessons” and carry each other as we are able. Relationally (we others) is a part of how we grow.
I think that the very first question is asking SELF, “what does being SPIRITUAL mean to you?”
What’s your living definition? It’s really hard to live out something we don’t even understand. And it’s even harder to live in life without functioning of purpose, anchored in feelings of significance and worth. Living a life WITHOUT hope, makes the heart sick (loosely translated proverbs).
Some question to ask yourself are:
- What is your ABSOLUTE TRUTH?
- Do you have disciplines that display this truth?
- What disciplines do you have in place that grow this area of your life that you consistently practice that you ENJOY vs feel that you SHOULD DO?
- Are you going through the (e)motions of the practices or does this really feel at the core of your being to be TRUE?
- Do you believe in this TRUTH because it’s your own truth or someone else told you to believe it?
- Are you CONNECTED to your SOURCE of POWER?
These questions are important because the answers give insight to WHAT you are already doing.
As you observe what you are doing, you gain opportunity to explore questions that you can begin to ask yourself: WHY? Why am I doing these things?
This applies to all areas of our life – how the components of physical and social aspects connect in our relationship with God.
You were CREATED in LOVE and DESIGNED with a PURPOSE in GOD’S love FOR God’s glory!
* remember that always!
Ask yourself…
What do you LOVE about yourself?
What would you CHANGE about yourself?
Then ask yourself…
What does GOD SAYS ABOUT YOU?
Let’s give God the final word and learn how to begin to agree with what God about YOU. Let’s give Him the final WORD of viewpoint of who He says that you are…
And taken at His WORD let us grow into His perspective.
We are His treasured possession, His workmanship.
We are His Beloved.
Together we learn to carry out our individual lives for Him by renewing our minds into seeing our own SELF as God sees us.
Let our “identity in Him” be our decided definition in who we are and our decision and declaration to ACTIVELY becoming our IDENTITY in Him!
But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Jesus Christ, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of His grace, expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.
Ephesians 2:4-9
God already did the work at the cross with Christ. You GET to BECOME His living FINISHED WORK.
It is through the cross, by the cross, that we BECOME what calls us to be in Him.
Through the saving grace and faith of the finished works of Jesus Christ as Savior can we enter into a relationship with Him…becoming our LORD!
To BECOME we must become in Him
To continue in the workmanship that He individually deems for us, we become reconciled into a relationship with Him through His eternal purpose that is accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.
In Him and through faith we may approach God with freedom and confidence.
Ephesians 3:12
Christ is our saving grace the cross into the fullness of God’s love
Jesus is the way, truth and life (John 14:6) to become in Him what YOU are meant to be…