1.   What exactly is a spiritual guide?

For my answers on spiritual guidance, please go here.

2.   What are your credentials?

For my answers regarding my credentials, please go here. 

3.   Why does my relationship with God need to grow? I’m quite contented with mine as it is.

i) You never stand still on your spiritual journey

You never stand still on your spiritual journey, contrary to what people seem to believe.

The process of personal transformation into God’s likeness described by the Apostle Paul (Corinthians 3:18) is a process that never stops until we take your final breath. You can’t consider yourself to have “arrived” spiritually until then!

You might feel that you have received all that God has for you in your life. But can you truly say you have already reached that point?

The apostle Paul had an exemplary and genuinely mature relationship with the Lord.

Yet he was constantly seeking more and more from Him, even though he had experienced such a radical conversion at the beginning!

Your own human assessment might not always be reliable.

Only the Lord’s is.

So, ask Him to reveal to you the ‘more’ He has waiting for you.

He always has more to give you!

ii) God needs your cooperation

It is true that you ‘are God’s field, God’s building’ (1 Corinthians 3:9, my emphasis).

But always remember that God needs your cooperation to make that building complete; in short, to transform you into His image (2 Corinthians 3: 18; Romans 8: 29) which, after all, is the single goal of your Christian journey.

The apostle Paul explains that you and the Lord ‘are co-workers in God’s service…’ (1 Corinthians 3:9, my emphasis).

In your limited humanity, you and I are not able see all the angles of our lives or all the layers within us that still need transformation and conversion.

Only God sees these. Only He knows exactly what they are in each person.

iii) The Institutional Church Has Limits

The institutional church is one of the chief agents of the Holy Spirit in His work of maturing you as God’s child.

It helps to take care of your spirit’s infancy and teenage years.

But as happens with any institution, it has limits on how far it can actually facilitate your growth as a full-fledged adult in the Lord.

So, if you really want to progress past your ‘teenage’ spirituality stage, you need to ask the Holy Spirit to take over the job more directly.

God has given you the Holy Spirit precisely in order to aid and guide your growth in Him:

“And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—”

John 14:16 NIV

If you continue to ask and seek the Spirit’s guidance, He will do this competently.

In fact, your ultimate spiritual Guide is the Holy Spirit himself!

Just to reassure you, here are some of the Holy Spirit’s functions in your journey:

• • to live the life of God the Father and His Son Jesus in you (I will not leave you as orphans… John 14:18 NIV)
  • to be the vehicle of God’s great love for you (…because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit… Romans 5:5 NIV)
  • to guide you (John 14:16)
  • to teach you the truth (John 14:16, 17)
  • to remind you of everything Jesus said (John 14:26)
  • to stand alongside you and strengthen you (John 14:16, 26)
  • Jesus’ representative to you on earth (John 14)

In my experience over 37 years, and in 26 years of guiding Christian women, the institutional church is better at helping the Holy Spirit perform these functions in the early stages of our journey than at your adult stage. Once you attain adulthood, you must at some point learn to rely on the help of the Holy Spirit to achieve these in your life. That’s why the Father sent Him to live in you (John 14:16).

4.   Why am I starting to feel unfulfilled in my relationship with God? I never had this problem before.

It’s often the case that sometime in your mid-thirties, your expectations for your life can begin to change.  You start to seek the real meaning of and purpose for your life. You start to look inside yourself more and ask deeper questions.

As a Christian woman, this can also be the time when you begin to sense that your relationship with God, and/or with your faith congregation, is not really doing what you expected it to do.

You might start to think that something in your spiritual life, or life in general, needs refreshing—or even needs to be put on a new footing altogether.

You feel a bit like ‘been there, done that’.

Your intuition, soul and spirit tell you that there is more waiting for you from God.

You begin to feel that something in your relationship with the Lord might be missing.

The problem is: you don’t have any way of knowing what that missing piece is, or how to access it.

Around this age, too, a particular life situation or relationship might trigger a dull awareness inside you of the baggage —mental, emotional, physical and, yes, spiritual—that you have been carrying around from early childhood. 

Don’t worry; you’re not alone.

Everyone carries baggage of some kind.

It’s part of the human condition.

The problem with all of us, though, is that we often don’t realize that we’re carrying it—until something or someone forces us to acknowledge this.

This ‘not-knowing’ about your baggage can manifest as a general dissatisfaction with your quality of life and with your relationship with God in particular.

You see, since you can’t heal what you don’t know about, the baggage remains unhealed.

And unhealed baggage can get in the way of your relationship with God. 

Learning to pray from and with your heart 

• helps you to recognize your baggage
• puts you in the best position possible for God himself to heal it

This is why prayer of the heart is always a win-win proposition.

5.   What are some signs that I need to deepen my relationship with God?

Just like your body gives you little signals that you need to pay a bit of extra attention to its needs, so does your spirit.

And the health of your spirit determines the health of your mind, your emotions and your body.

This is why Jesus told you:

³¹ So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³² For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³ But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 

 Matthew 6: 31 – 33 NIV

(My emphasis)

Thankfully, God gives us little nudges that something is out of skew.

It might be that your spiritual needs are changing or that your spiritual, emotional and psychological baggage is getting in your way —or both.

It is critical that you not deny or push aside your spirit’s nudges.

First, ask God to show you what He is trying to tell you or needs you to do.

This is where praying with and from your heart is critical. When you let go of words and thinking in your time spent by yourself with God in silence, you will start to hear what the Spirit is saying to you—not to someone else, to you.

This is precisely what prayer of the heart does so well.

You see, the Lord never stops looking after you and letting you know what’s best for you.

This is His mission.

You are His beloved daughter.

He really cares about your total wellbeing.

Think of it this way: God is inviting you to allow Him to find you exactly where you are right now, in whatever situation you might be facing.

He doesn’t want you to apply your spiritual make-up first!

He has excellent reasons for issuing you the invitation at this particular time.

As you start to accept His request, you will gradually come to understand these reasons.

6.   Can’t I meet my spiritual needs and heal my baggage by myself?

Sometimes you can’t see all the angles of your needs.

And very often you are not even aware that you carry baggage. 

While you can heal some of your baggage by your own efforts, and some with the help of trusted friends, trained counselors and other professionals, you certainly also need God’s help and light on your situation.

God is the source of all healing.

Friends and health professionals are only agents of God’s healing. All their gifts come ultimately from Him.

Moreover, God understands the needs of your soul and spirit best.

After all, He created you! He knew you before you were in your mother’s womb (Jeremiah 1:5).

He therefore knows you well enough to be able to provide deep and lasting healing.

Isn’t that what you want?

7.   What do I need to do to receive God’s healing?

In order for you to receive the Lord’s healing, God requires your co-operation in two areas.

First, you must give Him permission to heal you.

Second, you must allow Him to teach you how to open yourself more fully to Him.

God needs your permission, your co-operation, and your open, ready-to-receive heart. 

This is where spiritual guidance, together with discovering how to pray with your heart can be profound helps.

8.   One or two friends, including a senior pastor, have told me I just need more conversion, that’s all. Isn’t this enough?

Yes, more conversion is always enough.

Conversion is ongoing.

God wants to keep transforming you into His image.

But there’s a lot that goes in to conversion.

For example, if you wish the Lord to initiate the ‘more conversion’ that your pastor says you need, you must first give Him the green light to go ahead.

The Lord will never impose conversion on you unilaterally.

Second, how the Lord chooses to mature your relationship with Him is up to Him.

Be prepared for some surprises en route.

Don’t put limits on how the Lord wants to help you.

With the Lord, there is never a one-size fits-all program of conversion.

He created only one person just like yourself—you! You are unique.

You have unique needs.

Only the Lord can see all the angles of your particular situation.

The Lord also determines the ‘speed’ at which He will change you. He will never ask you for more than you are able. You can rest assured that He will always be loving, patient, sensitive and gentle with you.

He alone knows how much conversion you are able to handle at any one time.

Finally, for conversion to take place, you need to have a deep connection to the Lord. You also need to be able to experience His presence and His love for you, any time you want or need it.

In short, you have to know how to open up your heart fully to the Lord.

9.   Why does God need my help? He is God, after all!

Precisely because He is the all-powerful God, He will never force Himself on you. He humbly asks for your permission, your help.

In 1 Corinthians 3:9, the Apostle Paul explains that ‘…we are co-workers in God’s service…’ (my emphasis).

Again, in Philippians 2:12, the apostle Paul exhorts you to ‘work out your salvation…’ (my emphasis).

Paul means that you are not to remain passive in your relationship with God but to give God the co-operation for which He asks.

God needs your cooperation. 

My book, articles, and FREE Guide  re all designed to show you how to co-operate with God so that your genuine, lasting conversion takes place and you become the fully alive, love-giving and love-receiving person God wants you to be.

 

10.  Wouldn’t simply studying the scriptures or listening to a really good CD bring me the healing you are talking about?

If by studying the scripture you mean reading it through a solely intellectual lens, then my answer would be ‘No’.

If, however, you ask God to help you hear Him speak to YOU firsthand, directly, through the scriptures LINK TO EDUCATION PAGE —my answer would be a resounding ‘Yes —any time.

This profoundly enhances your closeness to the Lord.

And with closeness to Him always comes healing!

A really good CD that you already know brings you healing can also be highly valuable. But don’t view it as a substitute for discovering how to hear God speaking to YOU —not somebody else, to YOU —firsthand, one-on-one, directly.

You will then trust Him enough to have the confidence not only to ask Him questions directly and honestly, but also to expect that He will answer you personally!

A 2-way, direct, genuine conversation between you and your God is now ensured.

And with this, you have now fully positioned yourself to really receive the healing God has waiting for you.

And don’t forget the important role a trusted spiritual guide can play in your healing.

If you can find one, that’s tremendous.

But if you can’t, PLEASE rely 100% on the Holy Spirit.

As I repeatedly remind everyone, the Holy Spirit is always your ultimate spiritual Guide!

11.  Why do you place such huge importance on the need to experience God’s love?

Life is filled with unpredictables.

Sickness descends unexpectedly, important personal relationships go through rocky times or unravel completely, serious physical accidents happen, and, last but not least, situations of evil can spring out of nowhere (the devil never sends a telegram announcing his intended attacks on you beforehand). 

Each of these will be uncharted territory for you.

Each will be a new experience for you.

When you are entering into any new life experience, spiritual transitions included, you need LOVE more than you need advice and words.

You need to KNOW that God loves you—not somebody else, you.

Love, you see, is the highest of all energies.

It is the source of all the various gifts of God that you will need in order to stay strong, at peace, and confident, through your tough times and crises, and/or when you are entering a new life experience

• inner peace
• joy
• love
• faith
• strength
• wisdom
• freedom
• healing

All genuine love has the power to heal.

Just watch a mother bring comfort to an upset or sick child.

But God’s love has the most power of all.

His love is of a much higher order.

It is not a ‘need’ love as human love is.

It is a ‘giving’, ‘no-holds-barred’ love, totally without conditions of any sort.

It is a vaster, purer and more mature love than even the purest form of human love.

Without being able to experience God’s love whenever you want or need to, your spiritual life will be tedious at best and a contradiction in terms at worst.

It would be like trying to walk with one foot.

This certainly isn’t what God wants or ever had in mind for you.

12.  Why do I need to understand at least the basic facts about evil? Isn’t that a bit obsessive and neurotic?

Please find my answer in this article, which is Part 1 of my series, Understanding the Basics of Evil.

 

13.  Do you think it might help to learn the basics of the Enneagram theory of human personality? If so, how do I do this, and how long will it take me?

In both the Old and New Testaments, the Lord repeatedly impresses on us that there is only one thing that ultimately matters to Him —your heart.

Your heart represents the whole entire person that you are.

It includes every single aspect of your human make-up.

No aspect of you is excluded.

It is the place where the core of who you are resides at any one time.

It is the part of you that the Lord sees and knows intimately and fully.

It is what He cares most about. 

Your heart is the engine that drives every part of your relationship with the Lord.

It is your heart, therefore, that determines the quality of your relationship with God. It is the place where you live out your entire relationship with the Lord.

The Enneagram puts you in direct touch with your heart i. e. your will, conscience, decision-making centre, your words, thoughts and actions.

Your heart is also the place where the seeds of good and of evil co-exist and fight for your attention.

It is the place where spiritual warfare takes place.

It is therefore very important that you get in touch with what might be going on there.

The Enneagram can be a huge help in helping you do this.

It alerts you to things about you and about your life and relationships that you might otherwise not have noticed, or that puzzle you.

With the help of the Enneagram, they become very clear.

You can now put the brakes on anything that may be retarding or stunting your spiritual, mental, emotional and even physical wellbeing.

The Enneagram deepens your spiritual understanding and growth in many key ways: