Our life transformation begins when we encounter God. This frequently occurs when our pain drives us to consider our need of God, but also happens through seasons of change, or collisions with friends in pain. Or just giving time and reflection to the questions that continue to nag our soul.
Once our faith journey begins, it is shaped by one dominant force - relationships. We tell students, “Show me your friends and I’ll show you your future.” This reality crosses all generations and the truth is that our life is shaped most powerfully by the people with whom we experience meaningful connection.
This explains, for example, what research consistently confirms: that parents are the undisputed leader in influence for their kids. Who we spend time with, who we marry, who we admire, who we allow to be our influences - these are pivotal in our faith development.
Wisdom is to intentionally engineer this reality and leverage it for your own good. Pick these relationships carefully. If you are missing transformational community, get going and pursue it. Ask God for it, seek it, experiment for it and commit to it.
Particularly we believe that Spiritual Fathers are pivotal to our faith development. People we can safely process our most private questions of faith and life with. People who listen well, ask good questions, give small doses of advice, and point us to Jesus and the Scriptures; who laugh and cry with us; who know enough about us to blackmail us, but we know never will. These don’t have to be men, of course, but people who are spiritual parents - taking seriously their opportunity to invest, support, and empower other believers.
There is a famine in the land - of spiritual mentors or disciplers who are safe, honest, transparent, and fully in the game of spiritual formation. May the Lord bless you with such people and may He grow you into such a person for others.