A spiritual guide is first and foremost a compassionate companion on your journey with and to the Lord.

Her/his role is always to help you meet the Lord himself, who, by His Holy Spirit, is your ultimate spiritual Guide.

A spiritual guide helps you to understand your interior journey with Lord in any area of your life you wish or need that help.

This can be especially important when you are facing a crisis or trauma of any kind.

A worthy spiritual guide always listens deeply to what you wish to share with her.

 

A guide also helps you…

• deepen your prayer

• improve your overall wellbeing (described in the Hebrew word ‘shalom’, which means wellbeing)

• see God, yourself and others through a fresh lens 

• see where the Lord is at work in your life and —and just as important —where He isn’t

• ensure that there’s less chance of you missing what God might be saying to you

• this is important especially for us women, because we can get so bogged down in concerns about ourselves, those in our care, our personal relationships, the life events that confront us, and even about God himself —that we can easily miss out on what God is actually trying to say to us and/or to give us!

• discern whether evil might be present in a particular situation

• save you from the many pitfalls, dead-ends and unnecessary suffering that an assault from evil ALWAYS brings with it

Note

• A spiritual guide never ‘takes over’ your relationship with the Lord.
• On the contrary, she empowers you to explore and live it.

                          

How Spiritual Guidance

Made All the Difference in My Time of Crisis

Spiritual guidance is critical not only to the health of your Christian journey but to the health of your life in general.

Why?

Because your spirituality affects every single aspect of your human life and personhood.

Nothing is left out.

Increasingly, professional scientists such as neurologists, psychologists, general medical physicians, and specialist psychiatrists continue to enthusiastically acknowledge this fact.

My First Experience of Spiritual Guidance

Thirty-seven years ago, when I found myself experiencing a strange and unsettling dis-connection to the Lord, just when I needed Him most, it took a holy, humble, highly experienced and gifted Christian spiritual guide to show me the way through this profound crisis to the other side.

It was my guide who, using her God-given skills and training, helped me recognize that, in fact, my crisis might be the Lord’s invitation to actually EXPERIENCE —firsthand for myself, directly, one-on-one —His presence, love and rest —rather than merely hear about them second-, third-, or fourth-hand.

If I’d been left to my own devices, it would have taken me far longer to be able to recognize this, and I would have endured far more suffering.

Without a guide, I would have continued to spin my wheels.

I would have become increasingly disconsolate.

God never wants this for you or me.

My guide introduced me to a simple but guaranteed way to reconnect to the Lord, in which a person enters into a direct, one-on-one EXPERIENCE of God’s presence, His love, and His rest (peace).

I practised this way regularly every day.

As the weeks progressed, my relationship to the Lord got more and more ‘real’.

I couldn’t wait to ‘meet’ Him again and again in my daily prayer sessions —to the point where, 15 months later, I realized that I had been transformed, gradually, from the roots up.

I came to see that I was in love with God!

And, by now, I had not the slightest doubt that He was in love with me!

And I knew beyond a shadow of doubt that He loved me just as I was, with ALL my faults and sins.

And I came to understand in the deepest part of my being that the ONLY thing that ever matters, has ever mattered, and will ever matter —is that God LOVES you and me and every single part of His creation, from the loftiest mountains to the tiniest insects (please visit my BOOK web page and look for the section titled Excerpt from Book).

 

My skilled and gifted guide had humbly allowed God to use her God-given gifts to set me FREE!

 

Her regular weekly guidance had empowered me to take the first, baby-step on the most exciting and most rewarding journey I have ever taken or can ever take

 

It introduced me fully and directly to God Himself and to the most dependable, love-filled, life-giving relationship any person could ever want or have.

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Thirty-seven years later, I still receive spiritual guidance from reliable, holy, humble, trained and long-experienced Christian guides, both men and women.

It remains a top spiritual priority in my life.

Spiritual guidance

• allows me to get through my traumatic, painful times, with immeasurably greater inner peace, joy, confidence and ease than if I had to ‘go it’ alone

• helps to make my joyful times even more joyful

• helps me make healthy life-decisions

• allows me to maintain my spiritual, mental, physical and emotional health intact, both in times of joy and times of crisis

Christian Women I’ve Guided for 26 Years Say…

Pat, Mother, Grandmother, and retired legal secretary

“Jan has taught me in a very non-threatening way how to do something that I find perhaps more difficult than others: how to enter into silent prayer so that I open myself up to the Lord in a way I had never done in this way before.

I really miss the one-on-one guidance sessions with Jan. I felt so accepted and loved as I would watch Jan thinking on the spot before coming up with a clear and helpful answer as I placed the complexities of my problem before her.”

 

Nel, University librarian

“There are benefits to having a spiritual guide. Jan has broadened my understanding, offered new insights in a non-judgmental way, and encouraged and challenged me to stay the course in difficult times.

Jan’s approach truly enlarges my understanding both of the scriptures and of prayer.

With her to guide and accompany me, I arrive at a much richer understanding of both the scriptures and of the God at their centre.”

 

Want to see more of what women say? 

 

 

Are There Other Ways

To Get Spiritual Guidance?

Your ultimate spiritual guide is always the Holy Spirit.

Always remember this.

But the Holy Spirit also uses people to help Him do His work of guiding His people.

The Spirit can also use other things to guide you: life events, personal relationships, books, the eucharistic celebration, personal prayer, worship services, teaching videos and CD’s, sermons, faith testimonies, Bible Study groups, prayer groups, home churches, educational courses, workshops, dreams, and even visitations from angels.

I’ve been blessed to experience each one of these things.

How Can I Find a Christian Spiritual Guide?

The Holy Spirit knows exactly what you need and who you need to help you on your journey with the Lord.

Therefore, as you go about finding the right guide, He is the very first Person you should consult.

Ask Him to send you a guide you can trust who also has the skill, experience and at least some degree of training in Christian spiritual formation.

That said, for the reasons I’ve explained, the right human guide is sometimes hard to find —even for the Holy Spirit! 

So … if the Holy Spirit chooses not to provide you with a guide right away, don’t panic.

Instead, just rest assured that the He himself will be your Guide.

NEVER doubt this.

How can I be Sure to Benefit

From Spiritual Guidance?

A guide is not an examiner who’s grading your performance!

She is a friend who counts it a privilege and honour that God has entrusted to her to accompany and guide you on your journey with Him.

I want you to feel completely free to be

• honest
• transparent
• at ease

with your guide.

If you find that you are not completely at ease, ask God to help you find someone else.

 

Fine -Tuning Your Spiritual Antennae

Prayer of the heart in combination with a reliable spiritual guide is profoundly reinforcing.

Together, they are a ‘win-win’ situation.

Both are gifts of God to you which He uses to fine-tune your spiritual antennae.

With this combination, your spiritual ‘receivers’ are able to

• see more clearly where God is present, or not present, in whatever you are experiencing
• hear FAR MORE CLEARLY what God might be saying to you
• far more readily discern where evil might be present in your life or in the lives of those dear to you BEFORE it has a chance to harm you and/or those closest to you

These are all priceless gifts of God to you and me!

You and I should never take them for granted.

Is the spiritual guidance that you and your programs provide the same as counseling?

No. They are not the same.

A spiritual guide can also be, but is not necessarily, a trained counselor.

There are certainly exceptions, however.

For example, in my second traumatic life experience, one of my woman-guides was both a practising Doctor of Clinical Psychology and a highly trained and experienced spiritual guide.

Count it a special blessing if God sends you an individual who is trained in professional counseling or psychology as well as in the discipline of spiritual guidance.

But in my experience, such people are sadly quite rare. Far more are needed!

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