Your Spiritual Life Isn't a Domain. It's the Container.

What does it mean to be spiritual? Not just spiritual, I mean super spiritual. Does it mean working miracles? Seeing some dramatic impact ripple out into the world? In our culture, we tend to assume bigger and louder is better.

What does it mean to be spiritual

My wife, Mary Kay, and I recently reread The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence. In an appendix to our edition, a contemporary of his describes him as one who wasn't driven by supernatural experiences, he didn't feel he needed them. In fact, he thought those who leaned on such experiences were often a little weak in their faith.

Brother Lawrence's faith was simple: God is Sovereign, God is Just, God is Infinitely Good. His "rules", what I'd call my routines, let him live without the need for retreats or long worship services.

In some ways this validated what I'd long viewed as a deficiency in my own faith. I'm not someone who needs retreats or extended seasons of prayer and fasting. I try to live each day itself as an act of worship, and I see him in almost everything I do. Do I still sin? You bet. But in my ordinary living I experience God continually. I pray to him through my living. I think about him throughout the day, and it's as if we're on a walk together. Some thoughts surely come from him; others I hand back to him. When something feels off, I go to him for insight.

This abiding isn't an occasional experience. It's living life with God. He is Sovereign, he is ultimately Just, he is Infinitely Good, so what do I have to fear? I'm not asking for something dramatic to happen to prove it. I've simply lived my life by experiencing my faith in what I do daily.

Not a Separate Domain

Which is why I get frustrated when people wall God off inside a "Spiritual Life" that's kept separate from every other part of theirs.

It's also why, when I talk about the domains of my life, emotional, cognitive, physical, relational, stewardship (financial and environmental), I struggle to list "spiritual" as one of them.

I've tried, usually when setting goals, and it never sat right. Because to me the spiritual life takes in all of these areas under the Lordship of Christ. It doesn't sit beside the others as one more domain; it envelops them. It gives depth and meaning to all of them. And as I grow spiritually, it changes what I work on, and why, and how, and when.

Above Logic, Not Against It

It works the way miracles do. A miracle isn't contra-logic, against logic, it's supra-logic, above it. My spiritual life sits over my other domains the same way.

So I push hard in each area, but I push because my spiritual life expects me to serve God in them. I work my cognitive domain not because I want to be smart, but because a sharper mind lets me serve and honor him more. Same with the emotional, the physical, the relational, the stewardship, any of them. I compost because caring for God's creation is part of my stewardship. The more I learn inside a domain, the more I lean into the question: what would God have me do here?

Over the years I've learned so much about:

• How and what I eat impacts my health

• How I work out and stay in shape impacts the way I live

• How much TV, scrolling, and screen time — rather than reading — impacts my brain

• How what I drive and consume is part of stewarding God's creation

• How I handle the waste I create

• How my emotions shape the way I feel and carry myself

• How I affect others emotionally, for good or for bad

• How my sleep impacts my thinking, feeling, and physical well-being

• How my journaling sharpens my thinking, feeling, and relating to others

Connected Containers

All of these are spiritual, so I don't panic when one drifts out of balance with the rest. They're always seeking harmony. Sometimes I lean into one area more than the others for a season, and that's fine. It's simply the time for it.

I sense the need, I lean in, and somehow it still aligns with all the rest. Harmony and integrity get built and kept as I live with a kind of unconscious intentionality.

Think of connected containers of water. Pour into any one of them, and given time they all find their level, each according to its own shape and volume.

My life works the same way. Balance isn't a static state I arrive at; it's a dynamic process, I change one area and watch it move the others. As I grow cognitively, that growth flows out into everything else. Every area is connected, and every area finds balance from my spiritual center.

I don’t write any of this to lead you to think I have it all together, I don’t. But I am learning to see everything is within my spiritual domain and that is the unifying impetus in my life.

That's why my spiritual centering time matters so much.

It's what lets me seek harmony, integrity, and balance across all the rest.