2. The events and happenings of my life are not my spiritual journey. My spiritual journey is how these events shape me and my relationship with God.

Think about a significant event in your life. How has this event shaped your relationship with Jesus?

Try this for several events that were good, enjoyable, positive.

Now do the same for some events that were difficult, failures, or disappointments.

Reflect on your possessions. How have they shaped your spiritual journey with Jesus?

Imagine that you are on your death bed. What do you imagine will be most important to you at that time?

Reflect on the character qualities that you are aware of in yourself, for example gratitude, contentment, peace, love, kindness, joy, confidence in God, closeness to God, etc. How have the events and things of your life created these qualities?

When we think about our journey of life and relationship with Jesus, it is important to know what the journey is and what it isn’t. What is true about our spiritual journey is that the events and things of our lives are not the journey.

The journey is our response to these events and things, the effect they have on our souls, character, and relationship with God. Two people may experience the same event but have completely different responses to that event. For one person, fighting cancer may cause them to seek God and experience His presence in their crisis. Another person may not even consider God and be left to deal with their crisis without God’s help. One individual may be blessed with wealth and possessions and develop a grateful heart and grow close to God through His blessings. Another person with wealth may become proud, self-reliant, and not need God in his journey.

Events and material things certainly play a role in our journey, but they are not the journey. This is an important distinction that can be difficult to remember. Our human nature and our culture influence us to place our emphasis on what is tangible and material—things that we can experience and produce. We often form our identity around these material things—our homes, jobs, accomplishments, possessions, and so on.

At the point of our physical death, however, we will leave all this behind. What we take with us from these material things and experiences is what matters in our spiritual journey. How these shape us, form us, develop our souls, and facilitate our relationship with God and with others is what will last for eternity. This shaping process is our spiritual journey.

Even those people who do not believe in God have a spiritual life, a journey that they will take with them. Everyone is essentially a spiritual being who will experience a spiritual reality—a future life—that is different from this earthly one. Even though we may not be aware of the spiritual dimension of our lives, have this spiritual component nonetheless, and we are still on a journey.

The goal for those of us who want to follow Jesus will be to pay attention to our journey, to include Jesus, and to let Jesus and His Spirit integrate the material things and events of our lives into a rich spiritual journey. In this way He can form us into His likeness and enable us to develop a relationship with Him that we will continue to enjoy after our life on earth is finished.