A Contrarian’s Guide To Knowing GodSample

Spirituality on a Need-to-Grow Basis

Have you noticed that most of our programs and models for spiritual development follow a strict linear pattern? Step one, followed by step two, and so on. 

Yet, if we stop and look back at our own spiritual journey, few of us will find anything close to a neatly laid out linear path. For most of us, the road to spiritual growth and maturity is more like a meandering path with unexpected twists and turns. 

So why do we place such a great emphasis on sequential steps and an orderly progression in our discipleship programs and models? I believe it’s primarily because linear models and programs are much easier to design and administrate. 

In reality, most spiritual growth happens on a haphazard need-to-grow basis. As life happens, we’re suddenly confronted by the need for personal growth or more biblical information in an area of life that up to now hasn’t seemed all that important.

That’s why so many of our information-based Bible studies and linear discipleship programs look a lot better on paper than they do in real life. In theory, they’re life-changing. In reality, their impact is often minimal—and whatever changes they produce quickly fade. 

Spirituality is not something we master anyway. It’s a lifelong quest of getting closer—not getting “there.” Perfect mastery is no more attainable in spirituality than it is in marriage, parenting, friendship, or any other relationship. 

Isn’t that what the apostle Paul implies when he looks at his own spiritual journey and says that he hasn’t already arrived, that he continues to press on and strain for a goal that’s still out of reach? Here was a guy writing the Bible! This indicates to me that you and I probably won’t reach the point any time soon of having spiritually arrived. 

If you’re not so straight-line, don’t worry about your meandering or where you should go next. You’ll get where you need to be as long as you stay on the path and look first to God and Scripture when a need-to-grow crisis pops up. 

In the meantime, don’t fret if you go through a dry spell, or if the standard linear programs fail to produce much fruit. The meandering path is not only a common path...it’s a legitimate path. 

In what ways has your spiritual life looked like a meandering path more than a step-by-step process?