We Have Everything We Need To Be Spiritual

June 12th, 2009 | rpickett | Love of Wisdom, Spirituality

We have to watch ourselves against always looking at our circumstances and saying “if only this or that were different, then I could be spiritual.” Let us not fool ourselves. Often it’s the very things or our circumstance that we don’t like that bring about a better spiritual condition in our lives if we would just let them. (Keep in mind I don’t mean allowing harmful or abusive things to be done to us or others, such situations should be avoided.)

The spiritual minded person does not complain. Although I know that to be true, I still find times when I complain. I resist circumstances that I don’t like or I try to avoid them all together. It’s only when things aren’t going my way. As long as everything is going the way I think it should I don’t have a problem. But as soon as things go contrary, the problem begins. And the problem isn’t the situation, the problem is my own conflict of will. I’ve found in myself how easy it is to rationalize my stance, and to show all the reasons why I should resist a situation I don’t like.

By accepting circumstances as they are we allow our will to truly be crucified. Only when our will is completely out of the way can we find how to do God’s will. When we are busy resisting and avoiding situations we don’t like, we are trying hard to impose our will over our life and even over things beyond our control. Once we give up our right to have things our way we walk into a spiritual mindset. We can then begin to seek God’s will. It’s not comfortable, we don’t like it, we’d rather do things a different way, but by being patient and waiting on God we can gain his perspective and adapt his attitude into our lives. As long as we are resisting we can only look at the circumstance from the negative, self-centered viewpoint. By ceasing from our own efforts and waiting on God the situation can become more clear to us until it reaches a clarity where we understand what is really going on and what is the most right thing for us to do.

As long as we point our finger at others and say “If they were different then I could be spiritual” or “If they wouldn’t have done that then I could make it, but now I can’t” we are laying the responsibility of our spirituality on the shoulders of others who really have no control over whether we are spiritual or not. When we pull that responsibility back to ourselves and accept that our spirituality is our own duty, fully under our control, we can accept with open arms the very situations that bring about a more spiritual walk and develop the mindset to take advantage of even the worst circumstance and turn it into an opportunity to become more spiritual.