Just a few short generations ago, the general population didn’t fully appreciate the role played by human spirituality in a person’s —and a nation’s —health and wellbeing.

Today, thankfully, that has largely changed.

Many religious and non-religious health professionals now understand that a person’s spirituality might be the most important part of her/his human make-up.

Why?

Because the quality of your spiritual health affects for better or worse every other aspect of your humanity and life.

Carl Jung demonstrated this many years ago.

And in the years since, numerous scientists have affirmed the undeniable, intimate connection between the human spirit and the human brain, body, and emotions.

But the state of your spiritual health does something more.

It also directly impacts for better or worse your relationships with all the other people in your life —your spouse, children, extended family, work colleagues, neighbours, friends and faith communities.

When your spiritual health is optimal, you affect your relationships positively.

But when your spiritual health is malfunctioning, you affect your relationships negatively.

Isn’t this reason enough to take heed?!

Read on, and let me convince you that spiritual guidance really matters!

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Please don’t feel that you’re behind the times if you’ve never heard the term ‘spiritual guidance’ or ‘spiritual guide’.

I hadn’t either, until a severe personal crisis 37 years ago  forced me to find out!

I had to look in several frustrating directions before the Lord led me to a source of reliable, sound help.

What I did know then was that if I wanted to retain my sanity, I needed to spend quiet time with the Lord, apart from my regular responsibilities.

I knew deep down that in this silence I would have the best possible chance of ‘finding’—finally —the God who seemed intent on eluding me.

I would learn subsequently that this silence on my part would also make a big difference to the Lord.

You see, it is in our times of silence in His presence that the Lord has the best possible chance of finding you and me!

About one year before my crisis, I ‘happened’ to have become friendly with one of the sisters at a Benedictine monastery. When I told her about the crisis I was facing, she strongly recommended that, in addition to spending silent time at the monastery, I should also contact a certain sister on staff who was very well equipped to offer me the special help she believed I needed.  

This particular sister, my friend explained, was a highly respected, trained and experienced ‘spiritual guide’.

I valued my friend’s judgment and quickly made arrangements to meet with this woman at the start of my monastery retreat.

Having listened closely to my story, my new ‘guide’ arranged for me to meet with her once a day for spiritual guidance.

Each guidance session, she explained, would last for not more than an hour. She explained that after an hour both the guide and the person being guided get tired!

She also agreed to my request that, once my retreat was over, she would continue to guide me indefinitely. 

And so began a completely new spiritual experience for me.

I had been introduced to the beautiful, life-changing business of spiritual guidance!

 

The Stark Contrast Between My New Guide

And the 3 Pastors I had Consulted Earlier

 

The contrast between my new guide and the 3 pastors whose help I’d sought  2 weeks earlier could not have been starker.

One pastor had simply told me that I needed ‘conversion’. He said that I should reflect on Philippians 4: 1 – 9!

It never seemed to occur to him that I’d already been doing that kind of scriptural reflection and had been attending sound Bible Study groups for years.

Neither did he seem to understand that if the solution to my urgent problem had been that simple, I would never have needed his urgent help in the first place!

On looking back much later, I realized that these 3 pastors, though unquestionably kind and well-intended, simply didn’t have the skills or the training in spiritual guidance necessary to lead a person into a new, actual EXPERIENCE of God’s actual presence, love, and rest!

My new guide presented a radically different picture.

In our very first meeting, it quickly became evident to me that, unlike the pastors, she was not in the least surprised by my spiritual dilemma or by the Lord’s ‘seemingly’ strange ways with people like me.

Clearly, her faith in God was mature and all-embracing.

It was alive, deep, and strong, capable of overcoming the kind of ‘obstacles’ on a person’s journey that the 3 pastors could not.

Unlike the pastors, she radiated complete confidence in God that He would reveal Himself to me again.

Her faith was contagious.

Strong, living faith always is.

Hope stirred within me for the first time in 2 weeks.

I could breathe easy.

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This shocking and extremely tough experience taught me how important it is, when you’re in a tough spot in your life, to ask the Lord to send you a humble, holy, intelligent, experienced and trained guide. 

 

What to Look for in a Spiritual Guide

It’s very important to find a spiritual guide who sees the Christian journey not as a system of rules, of ‘do’s’ and ‘do-nots’ and ‘should’s’ and ‘should nots’ but as the journey WITH AND TO the Person who is Love!

First and foremost, a spiritual guide is a person who is genuinely committed to following the Lord.

Second, a guide is committed to connecting the person she is guiding to God.

Third, a guide is committed to consistently and faithfully holding up to the Lord in prayer the person she is guiding.

She/he also needs to be a person with whom the woman being guided can relate comfortably and trust.

While a guide must be genuinely humble, she should not be a pushover.

She must also, herself, be well experienced in the Christian spiritual journey.

She must be experienced in the sometimes ‘strange’ ways of God with men and women.

She should be trained to some degree in Christian spiritual formation.

A worthy spiritual director is a person who …

• is anchored in the Lord
• is fully committed to walking with Him
• enjoys a deep inner peace and joy
• believes that God is fully able to do what He promised (Ephesians 3:20, Philippians 1:6)
• respects all persons, including those she guides
• honours every person’s life experiences —joyful and traumatic
• understands that God finds you and me in our humanity, not somewhere outside it.
• is a careful listener
• is patient
• trusts and depends on the Holy Spirit to do what He wants in a person, in the way and time that He wants
• accepts the person she is guiding just as she is, warts and all

An effective guide is

• honest (in a kind way)
• non-judgmental
• entirely trustworthy
• of very mature faith
• humble —that is, she recognizes that a guide is only a facilitator for a person’s progress on the journey with God, and that it’s the Holy Spirit, using the guide’s gifts, who actually brings about that progress
• not a pushover
• able to accept all people just as they are without wanting to change them first
• does not take herself solemnly, just seriously
• has a robust sense of humour

That’s a long list, I know.

But when God calls a person to represent Him in the nurture of others, he wants that person to be a true follower of Him and completely trustworthy.

The Lord also wants that person to be not condescending but fully human.

After all, Jesus himself was fully human too!

 

Problems Finding a Reliable Guide

                

Regrettably, finding such a person seems to be getting quite difficult, at least in Canada, where I live.

Personal guides are hard to come by for several reasons. One is that some retreat houses who have spiritual guides on their staff have had to close.

There’s also the cost factor.

For most of us, particularly with the economic slump due to the covid pandemic, spending money above and beyond the most basic life necessities is no longer on the cards.

Even if we can find a retreat house with a guide, the accompanying food and accommodation costs might not be within our reach.

That said, I’m very glad to say that some retreat houses will never refuse a person who can’t afford to pay.

Finally, there’s the location factor. Unless you live in or very near a big city, you might have to travel a long distance to meet your guide in person. Basic travel costs can often make this impossible!

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