There are thousands of ways to get improvement techniques online. To improve our lives, health and body, we try to follow many among them. We also need to realize that we have to nurture our minds, so we observe the practice of reading a new book or taking a class. But, it’s much harder to identify ways to attend to our spirituality.
First, it is important, to begin with understanding what spirituality is to you. Spirituality is our desire to find a closer connection to God.
Putting our spirituality to work in concrete ways that we can practice can be done. Here are the top five suggestions on how to be more spiritual:
- Pray
Prayer is the first step toward developing your spirituality and practicing your faith. Be courageous in asking for what your heart longs for, and be patient enough to listen for the answer. Jesus taught the disciples to pray, “Our Father, who art in heaven,” that Jesus was teaching the prayer that summarizes all human needs. Say it to God as often as you can. Pray by yourself, and offer your petitions and questions to God. And then wait. Listen to his words. Understand that God will hear your prayers. Becoming more spiritual means becoming okay with the waiting, finding ways to listen, understanding that listening requires patience, and accepting that sometimes the answer to our prayers is “no,” or “not yet.”
2. Show Up
We can practice spirituality by showing up to our discipline. Presence is the way in which we indicate our priority to give our attention to something or someone. Our dominant practice of spirituality typically means church-going for an hour a week on Sunday mornings. This is a beautiful practice, and it’s a way to engage the mind, body, and spirit all at once in a communal setting. This is a way to gather with other people, who, instead of asking, “How are you?” ask, “How is it with your soul?” When joys and concerns are prayed in the church, you’ll hear what never gets said in a casual conversation: “I’m worried about my job.” “I’m concerned for my mother’s health.” “My marriage is struggling, and we need your support.” There is something about the practice of church-going, even in an ancient and ritualized form that connects us to one another as spiritual beings, and to God as the giver of all spirits.
3. Read Scripture
Reading Scripture is an opportunity for us to listen attentively to people who have shared their own experiences of faith and how God engages the world. Scripture tells the true story of how God managed and blessed us.
The Bible tells the story about how much God loves you. God would not stay distant, but God chose to come to the world in the most humble of ways, so that we might not experience anything that God hasn’t experienced, too. So, for us to read the stories in the Bible is also to read about how God decided to become present with us, through the person of Jesus.
4. Be Generous with your Time and Talents
The gift-giving season of Christmas reminds us of the powerful experience of how it feels to be generous. What if you continued this practice in the new year in other ways? Think of the gifts that you have to give – not just your money – but your talents and mental ability. If you are given talents and if you are rich with them, they must be shared. The world is longing for our gifts to be shared.
5. Find Ways to Serve Others
Our faith tells us that the most important commandments are: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your mind. Love your neighbor as yourself. Loving your neighbor can take on many forms, but it begins with seeing others as they are – as people with the same hopes for their lives as you.
If you’ve ever taken the time to volunteer in a way that directly connects you with someone in need, then you know how powerful it is to offer yourself in service to others. This is a humbling experience, and many will say that they went in expecting to bless others, and left feeling blessed themselves.
You can talk to your local church, or research the needs of your particular community.
(This article is edited and adapted from www.umc.org)