How to Become Fully Human

I have four lovely boys. I was present at each of their births, even helping to deliver our youngest son as the midwife didn’t arrive on time.

Holding my sons for the first time was a fathomless feeling. More so than almost anything else. I doubt there would be enough words to write down all the complex feelings I had at those moments. But one thing I am sure of, I wanted them all to grow up.

The aim of a baby is to become a child. And the child to become an adult. This is the way of life. It is built into our physical natures. But what of our spiritual side?

St Peter writes,

1 Peter 2 v 2

Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation,

When we are born, we are physically, mentally and spiritually an infant. As time goes on, our body and mind matures. We are able to walk, talk and look after our own physical needs.

But what about spiritually? This is a common word in our culture, and it seems to mean something which is ‘woowoo’. Something which is outside our physical and mental understanding. Some believe in the ‘woowoo’ and others don’t. It doesn’t appear to be a prerequisite for being nice to others and in our secular cultures, it is accept as just what some people believe and others don’t.

I’d define this differently. From a Christian perspective, I would say spirituality is the process by which we come to know God more. It is how we grow up as Christians. The more we place the Holy Spirit at the forefront of our minds, the more we come to maturity in Christ.

When we walk in the countryside, we tend to walk along well worn paths. It is unusual to go off the track. As we will likely get caught up in the brambles, trip over exposed tree roots or even get lost. So to successfully navigate the woods, we need to align ourselves with a path.

So it is the same, when we walk in the way of Jesus. We align ourselves with Him and his spiritual path. He calls us to humble ourselves towards God. He asks us to love Him and obey His commands. He requires us to trust in Him.

And as we do so, we grow up spiritually. So when we make a decision, we make it according to His paradigm. We make choices based upon loving others as ourselves. We choose actions which are according to His will. We determine the next step in our lives based upon what God desires and not on what we selfishly crave.

When we speak with others, we hope to encourage them to draw closer to God. When we listen to others, we try to find ways to bring wisdom to their situation.

This feels like it is impossible to achieve. And it is. We all fail to reach this high standard. While I sit here writing this, I am thinking about all the mistakes I have made today and where I should have chosen better decisions. But in Christ, we know absolution is ours, if we humble ourselves and ask for forgiveness.

Trying to walk within this Christian spirituality brings freedom. Our Western cultures seem to think freedom comes from fulfilling our fleshly passions or reaching self-realisation. But this is not the freedom Christ offers.

Galatians 5 v 1

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

Freedom in the ancient world meant the ‘freedom to fulfil your function’. A bird was not free because it could fly anywhere in the sky, it was free because it could fulfil its function as a bird. A caged bird could not do this. It could not build its own nest and could not dance and impress a mate.

A slave wasn’t free, not because they couldn’t make certain choices about their own life, but because they couldn’t fulfil their role as free person in society. They couldn’t be part of their own family, choose how they raised their own children or run their own business.

In a similar way, when Christ sets us free, He allows us to fulfil our function and become spiritually mature. This is our goal. To allow God to guide us closer to Him and become fully human.

We will never reach full spiritual maturity in this life on Earth. This comes when we fall asleep in Christ, the Day of Judgement comes and we become part of the New Heavens and the New Earth.

Until then, we need to continue to walk in the path of Christ, for he said,

John 14 v 6

I am the Way, the Truth and the Life

This is a cross post. I wrote this article for the Lighthouse SubStack. Feel free to check out other writers over there too.

How to Become Fully Human