Formation Happens Today

Today I want to make the point that spiritual formation is unique to each person. Its practices and roots are ancient, but its application is always in the present. It never happens “tomorrow.” And we can’t count on its past formative realities to carry us forward. Spiritual formation necessarily takes place today. It is not managed; it’s embodied. It is not achieved, as much as it is relentlessly pursued.

Being formed spiritually does not happen in an 8-week class. As the old saying goes, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” Spiritual formation is a lifelong pursuit accomplished one day at a time.

If many years of following Christ have taught me anything, it has taught me that following Him is at times not easy. This journey is filled with failure, frustration, struggle, and mess. When it comes to failure, struggle, and mess, the question has never been a question of “if,” as much as it has been of “when.” I will struggle, I will fail, and I will make messes from time to time, but the calling of formation is to persevere through the mess.

Spiritual formation, when it is applied rather than just talked about, is messy.