6 reasons to see a spiritual director.
When I explain to people what spiritual direction is, I find it’s often met with a lot of interest—like many things that sound really wonderful for other people but have no place in our own life. Or like many of the things we want to do in our lives but are waiting for a reason. I think there are many reasons we may not think spiritual direction is “for us”—and it’s not always as beneficial for everyone in every season—but I believe many of us are just missing the expressed invitation and the “why.”
I was first introduced to a spiritual director several years before I began meeting with one. Part of me knew it was something I could use, if only to talk with someone—but what about, exactly? I couldn’t justify a why. I felt a little directionless (“But who doesn’t?”), a little dissatisfied in my faith (“But shouldn’t I just pray more?”) a bit like there was something unrealized in me wanting to flourish (“But who do I think I am?”). I told myself I’d look him up if I ever needed to, not realizing that I didn’t have to justify it to anyone.
There are countless scenarios where it’s beneficial to meet with a spiritual director. You don’t have to wait to reach a certain level of spiritual maturity or get your stuff together. You don’t have to be in a crisis or have “something” to talk about either. But here are some of the biggest reasons people do begin seeing a spiritual director:
1. Discerning a life decision.
What does it look like for you discern? For many of us, we know to pray; we know to seek wise counsel—hopefully from people who know our hearts; and many of us know to seek a kind of peace in our decision. But that peace isn’t always clear—nor is it always our best indicator of God’s desires for us.
The hard work of discernment isn’t choosing between a good thing and a bad thing; it’s choosing between good things—two (or more) things that sound right, that feel right, that give peace but maybe also some anxiety. Whether you’re contemplating a career or vocational change, a move, or some other significant life decision, it can be difficult to sort through all of the prayer and inputs. This is where a spiritual director companioning with you can help.
A spiritual director discerns with you by listening to your heart and your process and noticing with you how God might be guiding. They don’t direct you in what you should decide. An Ignatian-trained spiritual director will also be experienced in time-tested guidelines that Christians have been using for centuries to “discern the spirits” that blow us this way and that while we try to settle on a decision.
2. Discovering and exploring new practices.
Some practices in our faith never change—but many evolve. This can happen for different reasons. If we’re curious, lifelong learners, we might just one to try a new way to pray or interact with Scripture. Other times, shifts can happen in our spiritual life that make our usual ways of praying or reading Scripture less and less fruitful—even difficult or impossible. All of this is OK, and a spiritual director can help introduce and instruct you in different practices that help advance your conversation (or silent being) with God.
Examples of this include:
The Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius
Many of these can be discovered in your own exploration and study, and a spiritual director can help you integrate these into your life and notice how these fit into a rule and rhythm of life that “goes with the grain” of who God is creating you to be.
3. Navigating a time of dryness or darkness.
If you progress in faith, you’ll almost certainly encounter a time when prayer becomes difficult and faith feels impossible. You probably already have. Unfortunately, this is also a time when we feel we’re floundering and unfaithful; we beat ourselves up, asking, “What’s wrong with me?” We might pretend everything’s fine behind the mask, or we might withdraw from our faith communities—making it an even lonelier experience.
When you’re walking through that desert space, a spiritual director isn’t going to try to fix you. That’s not what you need. What we’ll do is walk carefully and compassionately with you while your life of prayer changes, while you hold hard questions that may not fit in other places in your life, while you deconstruct and reconstruct. During such a “dark night,” we believe that Jesus is at work unseen. We believe that you’re pregnant with something wonderful that God can only bring out in ways that involve labor pains; and your spiritual director will help midwife this birth: encouraging you, helping reposition you and guiding gently along what’s actually a very natural process in your soul.
4. Uncovering your true self and calling.
For many years or decades in our faith, we’re responding to what we’re “supposed” to do. Everything is external. We listen to God’s will for our lives expressed in Scripture, taught in church, heard in prayer and maybe even read in signs. But that’s not the ultimate design. Eventually, God invites us to live out of the heart God is creating in us. This is our true self, and it contains our true calling—whether we’re talking about the ministry or job God is calling us to, the community or relationship God is calling us into, or the moment-to-moment faithful acts God is calling us to live out.
Uncovering our true self and the big desires that God planting in us is a long a delicate work. It involves uncovering some illusions about ourselves and about God; it involves deep listening. Do you need a spiritual director for this? No. One of the first monks, Abba Moses, said, “Go sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything.” God will guide you to your true self and true calling, if you allow God to. But, honestly, letting God do this is hard. And having a spiritual director to track with you helps.
5. Finding a safe space to be heard and heal.
There’s no substitute for authentic community—the kind where there are no masks and no pretenses, where someone asks you on a Sunday morning how you’re doing and you can say something more than, “All right,” or, “Busy,” with a forced smile. However, not all of us get to enjoy relationships where it’s safe to talk about struggles. This is especially true for pastors and ministry leaders. Or if community has hurt us in the past.
I repeat: there’s no substitute for authentic community for finding healing and wholeness—but spiritual direction provides a sacred space for you. It’s a confidential, non-judgmental and non-anxious space. A mature, spiritual director isn’t going to wilt if you tell them you believe God is cruel or that your congregation makes you want to quit ministry or that you’re flirting with some pretty serious sin. Of course, we’ll try to help you hear God steering you away from anything destructive. But spiritual direction values questions more than answers and process more than solutions—and in spiritual direction, we trust the process.
6. You really want to.
All of that said, the most perfectly sufficient reason to start meeting with a spiritual director is that you have the simple desire to do so. Of course, this is different from having a generic interest based on what others are doing or what sounds like something spiritual you “should” be doing. Two reasons not to see a spiritual director are so it can make you more spiritual or because you think God expects you to. But even then, I suspect that if we stop inviting ourselves or listening to the imagined command, we’ll hear the invitation that is for us.
You might not know quite why or what you’d talk about, yet that curious desire might just be an invitation from God to take an uncertain step forward.