What does it mean to be 'spiritually fit'?
JOY is the metric of our souls
Years ago, I was having coffee with a friend who happened to be an inventor. This was when fitness trackers were becoming really popular.
’Wouldn’t it be great if we could track someone’s spiritual fitness?’ I asked. It seemed so obvious to me. My friend was intrigued.
We spent about an hour sketching it out on a napkin. The technology was actually not that hard, even at the time.
Here’s what was difficult: what to measure, and how.
To measure our health - or our stress - it’s not that difficult - heart rate and activity monitors are pretty accurate. And people love keeping track of their own numbers.
But spiritual metrics are tricky.
There’s no way to easily measure our souls. The best we can do is take physical metrics like lower heart rate and blood pressure and correlate them to things like prayer, worship, and relationships.
We couldn’t really get past the measurement aspect, and how the analogy to physical trackers doesn’t hold up to real world application.
The idea of the ‘spiritual tracker’ faded away…
…until very recently!
The Examen
We call YWLG a ‘gym for your soul’. Just like at the actual gym, we recommend 'warming up’ before starting the deeper Exercises and Practices.
Today, of course - there are any number of prayer and spirituality apps.
Ritual
Hallow
Pray.com
All are very popular - and wonderful - and address some level of spiritual wellbeing.
But I haven’t been able to shake the idea of spiritual fitness.
Probably because I’m a runner, and I’ve seen so much benefit from using a watch - and physical fitness apps - to track my running stats, my nutrition, my sleep, my strength and speed.
So maybe we can’t hook a sensor up to our souls (though I’m still working on that idea!!) - maybe there’s another way to measure.
The idea of ‘fitness’ is there is some kind of goal.
What’s the goal of spiritual fitness?
Feeling close to God.
Knowing we’re loved.
Relationship with Jesus.
Sense of peace and hope.
Having the resources to help us through suffering.
Relationship and community.
JOY.
What if the measurement of how ‘fit’ we are spiritually is our sense of joy and connection?
Being a Christian is about following Christ. Church members have been doing this for millennia:
Reading the Bible
Participating in the sacraments - especially baptism and the Eucharist
Learning about church history and tradition
Participating in prayer and worship
Loving, serving, and forgiving others
Living in community
All of these things have daily benefits and eternal rewards.
And all of them take practice and participation.
Which ultimately shapes our souls - and brings us joy.
And like physical fitness, the idea is: as we practice, we get better.
We feel better.
We connect with God more easily.
We love our neighbors more.
We experience a sense of hope and well-being.
We feel like we belong to this ragtag group of disciples who call ourselves Christians.
So … JOY is the metric of our ‘fitness’ in faith - how we are becoming closer to God and our neighbor.
The idea and experiment that is the 'spiritual gym’ is to practice spiritual exercise for the ultimate goal of JOY.
Join us.