What is a spiritual life?
2025 Jul 4I was stopped in the car, and another car was beside me. It was a gorgeous, bright, warm spring morning. There was a young person in the other car - slouched and bored. It looked as if they felt life was meaningless in that moment.
I was not bored because my day would be full of tasks and events. Did that make my life more meaningful? I wondered if even though my day would be busy, could it also be a spiritual day?
Our human existence includes parts both material and immaterial. Spirituality addresses both these parts by recognizing the effects of the immaterial on our material life. •••
We all know that immateriality exists because we are capable of abstract thought. Abstractions are not material, and we all experience their usefulness. Mathematics and numbers are immaterial things, and they are directly effective in the material world. So, at least at this level, the immaterial exists.
Beyond this, there are verified records of near-death experiences where a person for a period of time had an experience separated from their body. Sometimes the body was medically dead, and the person had an experience from a location other than the body. When the person was later revived in their body, they reported things which were independently verified which could not be accounted for physically. These might be reports of physical things that could not even have been observable to the body. The only explanation is that an immaterial component is part of human existence.
In addition as evidenced by the near-universal religiousness of humans, people also have immaterial spiritual experiences. This characteristic of humans is a powerful evidence that as best we can observe, a spiritual realm does exist.
Spirituality
These days, many people say they are spiritual but not religious. They are looking for meaning from the spiritual realm, but in a self-defined way. They want a spiritual life, but they don’t want to be restricted by the theologies of established religions or by their historical baggage.
Spirituality can be said to be about a connection to the source of life and the purpose of existence. This can’t be universally defined because there is no widespread consensus about it. Each religion has explanations of these things on offer, but unfortunately, they often disagree with each other. You would usually associate with one tradition to gain its input. However, exclusive commitments like that seem to be objectionable to many people these days.
Consider science: it gives us models of the material world so that we can understand and predict what occurs physically. In many scientific disciplines, there are multiple competing models. The best models account better for what can be observed than do their competitors. And, we consider the most accurate model to be closest to the truth, which is what is actual in the physical world.
Religions supply us with models of the spiritual world. A spiritual model gives us explanations for how the spiritual world works, and the best models most accurately represent truth. Using the (best) spiritual model, we can know how to live well in the spiritual realm. This also enables us to live well in the material realm. If we live right spiritually, we connect to the purpose of life, and this brings meaning to life.
Christian Spirituality
For many good reasons, I align with Christianity. Historical evidence supports it. Observable evidence out of the experience of life supports it. I think it offers the very best explanations across a broad variety of life aspects.
However, the teachings of Jesus Christ are very startling - for instance, Jesus said he himself was the source of all life!
When we put his words into practice though, we see that they consistently result in human flourishing. And if Jesus was speaking truth, a life that was following him should then be a spiritual life.
As we follow Jesus, God does not expect us to live our life alone. It turns out that this is a difficult journey because it is unnatural. Following Jesus and trying to emulate him is very alien to us. However, Jesus, as God, promised he would send his spirit to us to help in this journey of life. Of course, this is a great mystery because God calls us to apply our full intellect, free will, and energy to the task while he is the one that actually is giving us the strength to accomplish it.
Spirituality as Life and Relationship
In some ways, it is like working with a good and encouraging friend on a difficult project. Their help strengthens and encourages us in the part of the job that we must do. God is this friend to us in our challenging life journey. As we remember he is there working with us, we are connecting to the wellspring of all spirituality.
However, God as our friend is so deft and unobtrusive that we easily forget his work together with us. This is the part where our practice is important. We only desire God because he first draws us to himself, and yet, God does not force his presence on us (another mystery). If we make regular time to focus our attention, we can be aware of God’s presence. In this way, we can directly experience God. •••
Although God is befriending us, we must also be befriending God! This means we must maintain attention on God in the relationship. And we must actively let the relationship change us.
Note that if our behaviors remain unchanged, a relationship with God does not exist.
Most of human life consists of mundane things, but in relationships, the simple things have meaning. There are tasks to take care of so life can be enriched or simply continue. My busy, non-boring day was filled up with building a fence and a cello performance. A good friend helped with the fence, and we got so much done while enjoying being together. I played cello in an ensemble where we had fun making the music, and we brought fun to our audience.
So, my day was meaningful - not because it was busy, but because it was done in relationship with others. It was also spiritual because I brought my attention back to God in experiences of the day, and made effort to live well representing Jesus.
Spirituality and the Ordinary
The God that made us came to earth as Jesus and lived the experience of a human life together with friends (one more mystery)! And God continues to be interested to participate with us in our experiences, and wanting us to be aware of him as we live our human life.
It is possible to have supernatural experiences of God; however, most of life with God will be in the ordinary. Even when Jesus was on Earth, most of his time was spent in the natural happenings of life (John 2:11). ••• So, we should seek the presence of God in the ordinary (while also being open to extraordinary things).
Jesus had lived such an ordinary life up to the time when he showed his unique self to his disciples that even Jesus’ family thought he was an ordinary person.
When we participate in something ordinary or even mundane in a way consistent with the values that Jesus taught, it can be an experience with God. If God does bring something extraordinary to us, we first check to confirm if it is from God’s character in the situation, and we respond with God’s values in action. ••• In this way, God will infuse our life with meaning and spirituality.
We test it to see if it is from God by seeing if it is consistent with what we learn from the Bible about God and about how we are to live.
I write this for me to remind myself, and to you, to encourage you to live a meaningful spiritual life together with God.