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When Spiritual Growth Looks Like Losing Ground

When Spiritual Growth Looks Like Losing Ground

Last updated on: October 10, 2026 at 10:28 am by Kathleen Mulhern

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When Spiritual Growth Looks Like Losing Ground 2026-10-10T10:28:59-06:00 Kathleen Mulhern

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There is much to read about spiritual disciplines, and eager people tackle them with the aggressive violence of an offensive lineman. | Image by Marian Florinel Condruz, Pexels.

Four Passive Spiritual Disciplines: An Introduction

When I was a college freshman, our class had a theme: “Not Somehow but Triumphantly.” This has stuck in my head for, well, ahem, many decades now. It seized the day, you know, in ways that launched us into evangelicalism’s confident, capable leadership mode and drew on all the victorious language of the spiritual life. This language is biblical and hopeful, encouraging and inspiring. Paul writes, “Thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ” (2 Cor 2.14). Nothing wrong here. Onward, Christian soldiers, and all.

And yet.

The Dangers of Fixating on Technique

And yet there is a “somehow” reality to the spiritual life that coexists with triumph, and the perception of this seems to be missing from a great deal of spiritual formation literature. There is much to read about spiritual disciplines, and eager people tackle them with the aggressive violence of an offensive lineman. Dallas Willard expressed concern about the spiritual formation movement because it can be perceived as a program for advancement with practices that “get us in shape.” In conversation with James Bryan Smith, Willard pointed out the dangers of fixating on techniques for spiritual growth rather than the goal of transformation. This Pelagian approach to the disciplines leads us to a triumphalism that has very little to do with what Paul was describing. His description of triumph must include such realities as a life characterized by “outward wasting away,” by being “hard pressed,” “perplexed,” and “struck down.” How do we who march in triumphant procession manage such diminishment?

Dismissed as Counterintuitive

I suggest that there are what we may call the hidden disciplines, the unexpected and largely unwanted realities of discipleship that “success” in the named spiritual disciplines may actually disguise. These hidden disciplines, largely “disempowering” rather than empowering, are unrecognized and, certainly by many in the American church, dismissed as counterintuitive to the victorious Christian life. And yet, they are there—visceral components of spiritual life in Christ—and evident even in Jesus’ life.

Jesus didn’t practice spiritual disciplines in order to better himself. He didn’t tackle rhythms as ways of cultivating the self. His triumphant march through life was most evident in weakness, obscurity, humility, and unwavering love for the Father. He bore our weaknesses.

Quiet Movements of Discipleship

This willingness to experience the degradations of life as we know it includes his embrace of our helplessness, our fatigue, our griefs, and our losses. Knowing the companionship of Jesus as we too shoulder all these realities of human life yokes us to him in quiet movements of discipleship that should not be despised.

We’ll begin with helplessness.

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