The Spiritual Life

   Living a spiritual life has requirements.  It’s not a college exam that requires a certain amount of knowledge which can be gained through study or a task that can be completed by hard work.  To live a spiritual life we are required to submit ourselves to God.  He is to be our professor, our guide, the one who teaches us.  No one else can bring us to the spiritual life.

   The spiritual life requires study, prayer, and the scriptures.  But it also requires work.  Work becomes part of our prayer life when we offer it to God.  What we are doing isn’t nearly as important as the way in which we do it.  Washing dishes, mowing the lawn, our jobs can all become prayer when we do them for God, offering Him our labors.

   We can’t achieve a spiritual life just by prayer, study, scripture and work, however.  As humans stained by original sin we can not gain holiness except by the grace of God.  Our prayers must be that God will grant us holiness; our study must be to learn His ways; our work must be an offering to Him.  Above all, to gain holiness and spirituality we must give ourselves to God withholding nothing.  He made us, He loves us, we belong to Him.

Lord I am Yours.

Make me holy I pray.

Guide me in Your ways.

Claim me as Your own.

Amen