Spiritual Direction: Interpersonal Relationship

“Spiritual Direction is defined as an interpersonal relationship in which we learn how to grow, live, and love in the spiritual life. Spiritual direction involves a process through which one person helps another person understand what God is doing and saying (Foster, 2009).” Its background can be dated back to the early establishment of the New Testament church. While Jesus walked the earth he became a living epistle for those who desired more spiritual direction. He spent countless hours mentoring and teaching his disciples the ways of God. The disciples had an up close and personal look of what it took to be able to hear from the spirit of God. Jesus desires only to speak and do what the spirit of God desired for him to do. “Spiritual direction …show more content…
Spiritual leaders are able to see, claim, receive, own and reverence God’s voice, God 's nudging, and God 's acting, in such a way that it elicits a natural and genuine response (Ellman, 2006).” The biggest strength in being a spiritual leader is that you help further the kingdom of God. As people are led more and more to follow God, we help fulfill his plans here on the earth. After the Holy Spirit came on the day of Pentecost, many people were added to the church, and that along with the church grew stronger and stronger. If effective leaders continue this same work, I believe that we will have a much stronger church which is a major strength of spiritual direction. On the other hand, I believe that once you are an effective spiritual leader, you can in some cases cripple those you lead. Over the years I have seen many people become dependent upon the spiritual guidance of their leaders so much that they hinder their own spiritual growth. As leaders I know that it means a lot to them to be there for their followers as much as they can, but they must also remember that they have to allow room for individual growth. “More specifically, the basic goal of spiritual direction is to develop the directee’s relationship with God. Because prayer is critical to this relationship, the directee’s prayer life is a major consideration for spiritual growth (Sperry