What is spiritual direction?

Once upon a time I wanted to get in shape.

I lived nearby a church with a pretty stellar fitness center and super affordable rates. My problem was, I could walk into the gym, but I had no idea what I was doing once I got there.

Thankfully, I had a buddy who had a side hustle as a personal trainer. And he hooked me up with a plan. “On Monday, use these machines, and this is how you use ‘em. On Wednesday, those ones over there. Friday, do these here.”

I simply needed somebody to tell me what to do with what I already had. It was like I had a bunch of jigsaw puzzle pieces and my buddy provided the picture I was supposed to be making. And it clicked.

Sometimes spiritual direction is kinda like that.

Here are some helpful handles, or frames, for understanding spiritual direction:

Spiritual direction is holy listening.

First and foremost, spiritual direction is about listening. Which means that it involves some silence. Sometimes awkward silence. But our lives are so, so noisy, we need a place to just stop and simply listen to our own hearts.

Scripture is slathered with invitations to stop and pay attention. Sometime you should go through Old and New Testaments, Prophets, Gospels, Psalms, and mark up every reference you see to listening, hearing, or using your ears:
“Be quick to listen, so to speak”
“Hear, O Israel…”
“He who has an ear, hear”

And so, spiritual direction is about being mindful to stop and listen to the work that God is doing in your heart and life and world. It’s about intentionally and systematically paying attention to God in your life.

It is a safe, confidential, one-on-one relationship.

In this way, spiritual direction can look like professional counseling. But where counseling may bring you from crisis to stability, spiritual direction leads you from a stable place to a deeper place of thriving.

Your story is sacred. And a relationship with a director is one of deep trust. A director is a trained professional that abides by a set of ethical standards (which you should definitely ask about and confirm in an initial interview). You are welcome to talk about and share anything with a director, and a director holds it in the highest confidence.

It is a safe place to say things out loud like you don’t hear God’s voice and maybe you’re starting to think this Christianity thing isn’t everything you thought it was, or that the Bible doesn’t make any sense at all to you, or that the job at the church maybe isn’t working out. Doubts, questions, frustrations—a spiritual director is a safe place for all of these.

Spiritual direction is about how you actually experience God, not how you wish you did.

Many of us have an idealized vision of what the Christian life should be and spend much of our lives chasing it: pray and read your Bible everyday, go to church every Sunday, tithe to the church, host a small group, volunteer at the homeless shelter as often as you can, tell your co-workers about your faith, go on a mission trip.

And we beat ourselves up when we don’t get it all done. But it’s not real. It’s a false vision of faith. The life of Jesus isn’t a hamster-wheel chase. There’s something much richer and fuller and robust going on.

And so, spiritual direction is about paying attention to your actual, real experience with God. The mountaintops. The desert. All of it. Not whatever celebrity-Christian-of-the-week you maybe didn’t even know you were chasing. Spiritual direction is about naming God as he speaks in your own heart and life and world.

Spiritual direction is one piece of self care.

Life is hard. A vocation in ministry is hard. It can be so easy to get caught up in serving others that you forget to take care of yourself, to tend your own soul. There are a variety of disciplines and practices (periodic retreats, sabbath, contemplative prayer, journaling, lectio divina are just a few) that keep your own spiritual muscles limber, so to speak. And regular meetings with a spiritual director is one of them.

If somebody told you the Christian life was easy, you got sold a bill of goods. Just like any car needs a regular oil change, tires rotated, engine tune-up, your soul needs frequent maintenance.

So meet up with a spiritual director and just talk. You may be surprised at what you find.

Send me an email here if you’re ready to get started. Spiritual Directors International has a worldwide directory so you can find a director in your area wherever you live.