Several weeks ago, I led a class during the Unit Ministry Team training titled “The Spiritual Growth of the Chaplain”. Being a Chaplain for over ten years, I have seen first-hand how easy a Chaplain can get too busy for personal spiritual growth. In our ministry, someone is always asking for something—from prayer to PowerPoint. The job is a blessing, but it can easily get overwhelming. So, I taught the class to encourage the newer Chaplains to continue to be intentional about their spiritual growth.
Intentional Spiritual Growth is growth that happens on purpose. This takes the everyday decision to meet with God—to read God’s word and to pray. This cannot be emphasized enough. It is much like a relationship with another person, we must stay in contact with the other person. We call it, “Staying in touch”. If you do not stay in touch with the person, no matter how much you like them, you will begin to lose a connection with this person. Why would it be any different if you lose touch with God? Isn’t it obvious that you will begin to lose the connection?
We must maintain that connection with all of our might. We must make the hard decisions to keep the connection. It is too easy to allow good things—like early morning prayer groups or physical fitness to crowd out our time with God in the morning. Unless, I forceful commitment to stay the course on our time with God, we will lose that connection.
We must make our commitment to spiritual growth intentional. We must make it a priority. After all isn’t a strong relationship with God worth it?