Do you want to grow spiritually? Of course you do. We all do. And God wants us to as well, and will help.
But what does spiritual growth actually mean? What’s the goal actually? And most importantly, how do I get there?
These are all questions that we’re going to take up and go deep into in an upcoming retreat at Corhaven called “Grow to the Next Level” on Saturday, May 30 from 9.30am-5pm.
We’ll explore how human life cycle helps us to understand the spiritual life cycle. Just as in our physical lives we experience stages and seasons -birth, youth, adulthood, and maturity – so also do experience them in our spiritual lives. The difference is that in our spiritual lives it has nothing to do with our chronological age. Just because you are 55 doesn’t mean that you are mature. It’s possible and frankly not uncommon for someone to be in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, and still be a spiritual infant!
It’s not as common, but still is possible that a person in their 20s can actually be quite an adult spiritually. And, just as there are awkward, disorienting and painful experiences of transitions between the seasons of our lives, like adolescence and our midlife years that happen in our real lives, so also we experience similar things in our spiritual development. It is in these transitions of adolescence and midlife years that spiritually many people end up in the shoals, making a shipwreck of their faith. If we don’t understand what the transitions in the spiritual life cycle are, we will be absolutely unprepared to what happens when God doesn’t deliver the way we expected Him to in our youthful understanding of Him. We’ll talk about those.
We’ll also explore different spiritual disciplines that are particularly helpful in each of the stages of the spiritual life, and offer some questions to help us consider where we are, and also what sorts of ways might we grow to the next level.
For a longer reflection on stages of spiritual growth, here’s something I wrote a little bit ago that provides a bit more context. I hope you’ll take a solid step forward by joining us in this retreat!
