Spiritual Formation Journey-Part One

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

MW Editor’s Note: Because spiritual formation is vital to the health of your life, we are going to walk through this in two parts, looking at six stages of spiritual formation.   

A bit of a disclaimer. The Christian life is not some blissful, carefree, easy, walk in the park. If someone is telling you that, they are lying to you. This is not a wet blanket on your spiritual journey, but to be honest about what walking with Jesus looks like. There is a cost to following Him. Your life matters such that even if you face painful twists and turns, those do not negate your faith. The great hope is in knowing God is present at all times, using such to deepen your character, to redeem your life. So, follow along with an underlying understanding that for the joy set before Him, Christ sacrificed His all for you.

Whether you realize it or not, you are on a spiritual journey.  Where that journey lands you is highly contingent on the object or person your journey is focused on. As Blaine Eldredge said in a Killing Lions video, about his greatest fear: “You put in all that effort only to find out you are building on the wrong wall.”

Not all roads lead to God. 

The question for each of us, in our spiritual journeys, is whether it is leading us towards a life with God through His Son, Jesus, or not. And, this is where the confusion can exist.

We’re not talking about religion; we’re talking about relationships.

There is a simple but clear outline of Christian spiritual formation. It stems from centuries of spiritual mystics like John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila, who figured out that following Jesus goes far beyond rituals. There is a deeper side to the Christian life.  Many of us start alright, but without realizing it, end up hitting the proverbial wall in our faith.

In walking through these six stages, I’ll tell my story because I hit the wall, and overcame it!

Stage 1: Belief in God

Here we recognize our need for God.  My story hit a Kairos moment when I was 12. My boyhood church experiences included worship and Sunday School. I learned Bible stories and memorized verses. Many Sundays I jumped in the family car after church, hot and sweaty; because I was running around with my friends, crawling under pews and hiding in the choir loft or baptistry.

Around age 12, after a children’s church Christmas program (I was a shepherd boy), my mom explained the Christmas story and Easter to my sister and me. For the first time, my pre-pubescent brain recognized my sin and need for God. Under my top bunk bedcovers, with the lights off, I repented of my sin and trusted Christ.  

Somewhere in the heavens, I’m told that angels threw a party over my faith decision. I believe it happened. The thing I felt was a huge weight off my chest.

Perhaps you have a story of coming to faith in Jesus. The circumstances are most likely different, but the core message of sin, repentance, and the complete coverage of Christ over your life is there. If it isn’t, hover longer at Stage 1. Ask God to show you Himself in his son, Jesus. This is a great time to have such conversations with friends who are on a faith journey with Jesus. 

Stage 2: Life of Discipleship

This is where the foundations of faith are built. You are introduced to the Bible and how to study it. Prayer and worship become part of your rhythm. Perhaps a small group or house church is part of your regular flow of growing your faith in community.

At our current church fellowship, there is a weekly gathering of young adults (18-28 year olds).  Food, fellowship, Bible study, prayer, and worship, not to mention volleyball, fill the evening! Around 100 attend with many glimpses of God drawing young adults into a life of discipleship. Intermingled are older adults who come alongside as mentors.

All honesty, at age 12, my new life in Christ went nowhere. No one took me aside to disciple me. (Perhaps my church didn’t know what to do with a saved 12-year-old?) In fact, the next 3-4 years were some of the most tumultuous and duplicit years of my life. Living in the world, experimenting with things I should not have. Plagued by raging hormones, and yet trying to be this nice Christian teenager at church. Talk about hypocrisy.

By age 15, I was negotiating with my parents (sometimes arguments) on how little I could go to church. I wanted it to be zero. They wanted me there every time the doors were open (three times a week). We settled on Sunday mornings, much to my folks’ chagrin. 

All in all, my life of discipleship got off to a rough start. Thankfully, things changed when I hit university. I was involved with a campus group called Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship.  My walk with Jesus took off like a rocket! Things clicked!  My hunger for the Word was unquenchable. I’d never miss Bible study or Friday night fellowship. It was an enriching season of my young adulthood.

Stage 3: Productive Life

After university, I jumped right into church life; active in a post-college young adults group in our city, becoming the volunteer state youth director for a collection of 13 churches, which meant leading summer youth camps and retreats. In my twenties, I became a deacon in our church and helped out on Sundays with certain parts of the worship service. Besides being a full-time architect, my bachelor life was quite busy; hectic at times. I was busy performing.

That’s not to say this productive stage of my spiritual formation was all trash. God did some amazing things in me, and in those I served with. I saw the youth I led grow deeper in character and hope arising through some difficult crisis. God is good.

The thing that I was naive to at the time (and so were those in leadership), was that a willing soul can quickly become burned out. Well-meaning intentions can turn into a worn-out and abused soul.  That was part of my story.  It’s when I hit the wall.  

The Wall

Ever watch a crash-dummy car test? 60 mph against a concrete wall. Sometimes, in the Christian life, a truly saved person can hit the wall. They are done. Wounded, Confused. Exhausted. Their once faithful, enthusiastic, ever-present face no longer darkens the doors of the church. They block certain callers when they know it’s a plea to volunteer for “just one more thing”. 

In his book Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, author Peter Scazzero describes the wall as:

• A season of spiritual stagnation where normal disciplines (prayer, worship, service) feel empty or fruitless and spiritual life seems dry.  

• It aligns with the classic Christian idea of the “dark night of the soul”—a period of inner emptiness, confusion, and loss of felt connection with God.  

• Scazzero emphasizes that it’s more than ordinary trials—the Wall is a deep, soul-level transformative challenge that confronts our deepest fears, attachment to control, and unexamined parts of ourselves. 

Here’s the sobering part: many Christians hit the wall and stall out and it doesn’t have to be that way. And, I know of many who have avoided the wall. But, it is the experience of some of us. Me included.

I was visiting with a young man who is deeply pursuing Christ. He grew up in a family that was actively involved in church. In fact, his parents helped start two church plants. Today, his folks don’t attend church.  It’s not that they have turned their backs on God; they are tired and frankly worn out.  They’ve hit the wall.

Perhaps you are at the wall. 

The wall isn’t inevitable, but it can stall us out in our faith journey.

Isolation compounds the pain of the wall.  Sometimes shame, in its attempts to destroy your faith, places so much of your spiritual dryness on the faults of others who led you spiritually. If your pastor hadn’t had that affair. If your youth group leader hadn’t sexually abused you. If the church weren’t so clicky, always excluding you.  If that is you, I am sorry for how imperfect people wounded you. It’s never justified. The Lord will deal with each of us in our sin, mine included. 

However, the wall is not where Jesus wants to ultimately take us. He didn’t save you (Stage 1) just so you can hit the wall. There is a deeper level of experiencing the presence of Christ in spiritual formation that shatters the wall. 

If you have experienced the pain of the wall, this is the time to get vulnerable. I tend to avoid pain (it’s what shame wants of us). However, the Gospel embraces pain (look at Jesus on the cross). Find a few safe, trusted believers who will not fix you, but will listen to your story and love you through the wall.  

There is life after the wall!

Next time, we’ll dive into Stages 4 through 6.

Warrior On!