Spiritual Growth: Today's
Spiritual Challenge
To grow spiritually in a world defined by power, money, and
influence is a Herculean task. Modern conveniences such as
electronic equipments, gadgets, and tools as well as entertainment
through television, magazines, and the web have predisposed us to
confine our attention mostly to physical needs and wants. As a
result, our concepts of self-worth and self-meaning are muddled. How
can we strike a balance between the material and spiritual aspects
of our lives?
To grow spiritually is to look inward.
Introspection goes beyond recalling the things that happened in a
day, week, or month. You need to look closely and reflect on your
thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and motivations. Periodically examining
your experiences, the decisions you make, the relationships you
have, and the things you engage in provide useful insights on your
life goals, on the good traits you must sustain and the bad traits
you have to discard. . . (Continued below)
Spiritual Growth: Today's Spiritual Challenge (-
continued)
Moreover, it gives you clues on how to act, react,
and conduct yourself in the midst of any situation. Like any skill,
introspection can be learned; all it takes is the courage and
willingness to seek the truths that lie within you. Here are some
pointers when you introspect: be objective, be forgiving of
yourself, and focus on your areas for improvement.
To grow spiritually is to develop your potentials.
Religion and science have differing views on matters of the human
spirit. Religion views people as spiritual beings temporarily living
on Earth, while science views the spirit as just one dimension of an
individual. Mastery of the self is a recurring theme in both
Christian (Western) and Islamic (Eastern) teachings. The needs of
the body are recognized but placed under the needs of the spirit.
Beliefs, values, morality, rules, experiences, and good works
provide the blueprint to ensure the growth of the spiritual being.
In Psychology, realizing one’s full potential is to self-actualize.
Maslow identified several human needs: physiological, security,
belongingness, esteem, cognitive, aesthetic, self-actualization, and
self-transcendence. James earlier categorized these needs into
three: material, emotional, and spiritual. When you have satisfied
the basic physiological and emotional needs, spiritual or
existential needs come next. Achieving each need leads to the total
development of the individual. Perhaps the difference between these
two religions and psychology is the end of self-development:
Christianity and Islam see that self-development is a means toward
serving God, while psychology view that self-development is an end
by itself.
To grow spiritually is to search for meaning.
Religions that believe in the existence of God such as Christianism,
Judaism, and Islam suppose that the purpose of the human life is to
serve the Creator of all things. Several theories in psychology
propose that we ultimately give meaning to our lives. Whether we
believe that life’s meaning is pre-determined or self-directed, to
grow in spirit is to realize that we do not merely exist. We do not
know the meaning of our lives at birth; but we gain knowledge and
wisdom from our interactions with people and from our actions and
reactions to the situations we are in. As we discover this meaning,
there are certain beliefs and values that we reject and affirm. Our
lives have purpose. This purpose puts all our physical, emotional,
and intellectual potentials into use; sustains us during trying
times; and gives us something to look forward to---a goal to
achieve, a destination to reach. A person without purpose or meaning
is like a drifting ship at sea.
To grow spiritually is to recognize interconnections.
Religions stress the concept of our relatedness to all creation,
live and inanimate. Thus we call other people “brothers and sisters”
even if there are no direct blood relations. Moreover,
deity-centered religions such as Christianity and Islam speak of the
relationship between humans and a higher being. On the other hand,
science expounds on our link to other living things through the
evolution theory. This relatedness is clearly seen in the concept of
ecology, the interaction between living and non-living things. In
psychology, connectedness is a characteristic of self-transcendence,
the highest human need according to Maslow. Recognizing your
connection to all things makes you more humble and respectful of
people, animals, plants, and things in nature. It makes you
appreciate everything around you. It moves you to go beyond your
comfort zone and reach out to other people, and become stewards of
all other things around you.
Growth is a process thus to grow in spirit is a day-to-day
encounter. We win some, we lose some, but the important thing is
that we learn, and from this knowledge, further spiritual growth is
made possible. Spiritual Growth: Today's Spiritual Challenge
Spiritual Growth:
Today's Spiritual Challenge |
