Spiritual Health: The Integrated Self

Even the most joyous and balanced person will have a “bad hair day” – a day when things tend to fall apart despite one’s faith, planning, or expertise. The curious thing is that many times when we sense things are falling apart things are actually falling together. Sometimes we have to let things “fall apart” to get well.

The Undivided Soul

Faith: Covenant Relationships in Action

To be in denial about reality does not alter the facts, nor do we become healthier. To refuse to change for the good is often worse than death itself, as we then break the covenant, and hope dims for transformation and recovery. The willingness to be open to confession is the beginning of new life. When this openness forms the larger context for all our lives, we then move forward total liberation and salvation, which affects all we do in all relationships. This kind of marked change requires prayer and supportive community. Prayer must be a dialogue: a dialogue that is praise, disclosure, and request before and of God, followed by moments of quiet that one may hear, discern, and feed on divine response.

The Undivided Soul

Faith: Covenant Relationships in Action

In our faith journey our growth requires being clear about our strengths and weaknesses, our knowledge and ignorance, and our desires and fears. In learning about who we are and having the courage to name our spiritual assets and liabilities we can then begin to address the necessary changes for health and wholeness. During our moments of awareness and enlightenment we see who we are. We then remember whose we are and where we ought to be in our faith journey. Being in a covenant with God means to be in a living process.

The Undivided Soul

Faith: Covenant Relationships in Action

Confessing faith is proclamation in action. In the making-known of one’s faith to another, one is able to move from self-reflection and personal piety to community engagement and liturgy. To verbalize one’s faith to another is an act of worship and witness. The speaking is the telling of the story, an affirmation and recitation of the activity of God in one’s life, which also becomes an invitation to others to experience the goodness, glory, and love of God.

The Undivided Soul

Faith: Covenant Relationships in Action

To be confident is to be certain, to have full assurance of mind, or to have a firm belief in the reality or trustworthiness of another. Such confidence inspires a boldness and a courage to persevere that overcomes suspicion or distrust. Confidence in God gives us a marvelous sense of power and joy, which gives us a hopeful, generous way of being in the world. We have a sense of a benevolent God who has created a vast abundance, that humanity might take pleasure in this fullness and be good stewards over such blessings as our context becomes generosity. In times of social action our mind-set embraces a surety that God is on our side – on the side of those who believe, who care, and who love. God takes delight and pleasure in our healing, our conversions, our health, and our salvation. As God’s faith generates our faith and our faithfulness, in times of quiet we may often hear God’s still, small voice that says, “Here I am, the I-am, who is always becoming, who is here on your behalf, Beloveds.”

The Undivided Soul

Faith: Covenant Relationships in Action

We are called to praise God in God’s holy place in the heavens, because of the divine mighty words and because of divine greatness. We are called to praise God with trumpet, lute and harp, tambourines and dancing, flute and strings and cymbals. Everything that breathes is called to praise God. Psalms, a book of hymns, poems, and prayers, begin with moral teachings about human life and end in praise. Praise is the celebration of God: the acts of adoration and the acts of homage. When connected to faithful covenant action, one praises God daily. There is a release and a joy unspeakable when one engages in praise, particularly praise with power from the Holy Spirit. Praise is effortless, as we are children of God called to a committed relationship with God, ourselves, and our neighbor.

The Undivided Soul

Faith: Covenant Relationships in Action

Like the rain, life’s events sometimes come in soft, gentle drops or thunderous, electrifying upheaval. In the midst of the gentle sprinkle we experience peace, become relaxed, and are often able to be at one with ourselves and created order. In the moments of torrential downpour we often experience a restlessness that changes to deep concern when our lives and property seem to be on the verge of destruction. In the winters of harsh weather and discontent or in the springs of re-creation and all things made new, we are challenged by the vicissitudes of life. These ebbs and flows in our existence often precede monumental changes symbolized by nature’s symphonic dances – the many colors of creativity, numerous textures, qualities, and sounds from triple forte to incredibly soft. Thus there are many things in our lives that we cannot control, but we can have a healthy outlook when we ground our realities in faithful, covenantal action. Such action is prayerful and participatory. In the context of God’s great, enduring, extensive, and reliable faith (Lam. 3:23; Ps. 100:5; Ps. 36:5).

The Undivided Soul

Faith: Covenant Relationships in Action

Love in action is more powerful than prophecy, symphonic sounds, and sacrifice. First Corinthians 13 extols the power and promise of love, the love that is a catalyst for faith. Love is patient, kind, polite, and embraces community. Love transcends retribution, limits, and conceit. Love is everlasting, mature, and a gift of the spirit. Loving faith provides the oasis in the desert, the place of refreshment and regeneration. For many, such an experience of loving faith is a Kairos moment – a resurrection, a rebirth, a revival… a critical component of this rejuvenation process is faith. With the strength, the prayer, and the care of a community that can be the living witness of faith in action, one can come to a sense of peace, to periods of revitalization, and to new places of experiencing self and God.

The Undivided Soul

Faith: Covenant Relationships in Action

Faith, the context for healing,

Becomes a catalyst for well-being

Amid the divine gaze,

Remaking dry bones,

Reshaping paralyzed limbs,

Restoring ill health.

Faith: a process, a power, a presence of God,

Energizes our tired minds,

Regulates our hearts,

Renews our tired bodies,

Excites our broken spirits,

Makes us whole.

Faith serves as a divine lens,

Showing us the density of pain;

Helping us to rebel to that which needs to change:

Shielding us from hopelessness,

Reminding us of the sacredness,

Which made, sustains, and keeps us.

The Undivided Soul

Faith: Covenant Relationships in Action

Love is powerful. Love helps us transcend, grow, and actualize fully the capacity of what it means to be human and to be in community in the world. This movement is sometimes fraught with resistance from those who want things to remain the same. Other times this covenantal love is a move to joyful action, made visible in thousands of random acts of kindness done by thousands of people each day, not for the sake of national or international acclaim, but because people care. So often we hear phrases of doom and gloom about the current status of the world. The actions of God and humanity taken in tot rebuke that assumption.

The Undivided Soul