Quotes from Gary W. Moon

If there is a single factor that makes spiritual direction effective as a change agency for the soul, it is this: spiritual direction holds our shame at bay long enough for us to see ourselves as God sees us in Christ.

First, he claims many people feel a need for personal growth in a Christian way of life.

If you eat, breathe and grow, two things are happening—which have little to do with either air or burgers. You are receiving an education and your "spirit" is being formed. To be alive is to be formed.

We define Christian spiritual direction, then, as help given by one Christian to another which enables that person to pay attention to God's personal

David G. Benner has defined spiritual direction as a prayer process in which a person seeking help in cultivating a deeper personal relationship with God meets another for prayer and conversation that is focused on increasing awareness of God in the midst of life experiences and facilitating surrender to God's will (2002:94).

allowing the Word and Spirit of Christ to enter into one's depths and begin to transform each component of the human being to Christlikeness-under the direction of a regenerate will and with constant overtures of grace from God (Willard 2002:42).

I define spiritual direction as the interaction between one person, trained to listen for the movement of God, and another who desires to develop and cultivate an intimate, personal relationship with God.

One can almost apply Gabriel Marcel's famous insight: life is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be lived.

Believing that spirituality is vital for growth and essential for dealing with life's problems, many individuals are pursuing a journey of spiritual growth.

The constant theme has been the cultivation of communion with God, prayer and the transformation it brings. In the Orthodox tradition, this is true healing for the soul.

Faith is, at heart, the central relationship that gives meaning to our life; we are able to interpret our experiences in light of that relationship. Or as Katherine Dyckman and L. Patrick Carroll put it, To `faith' is to hand over the direction of one's journey to another, to yield up . . . `the illusion of control' to someone who is essentially beyond our control, over whom we have no power (1981:8 9).