Spirituality--A great effort

I want greater spirituality. I want it.

Why? Listen to this:

"With spirituality, we are successful, and without it we are not."

"To be truly spiritual is to walk with God. It is the key to true happiness and success in our lives in all kinds of circumstances."

"When spirituality and testimony have become part of an individual's experience, that person becomes more independent, self-disciplined, confident, and happy, and at peace with whatever circumstances [she] may face."

These sentences come from Joe J. Christensen, in an article called Toward Greater Spirituality. I like it because it gives me simple questions to ask myself to assess where I am and where I need a lot more work.

Here are his ten questions. I include them here (along with the link to the whole article above) simply to share something I find profound and to have it in a place I can easily find it again to read through it often. Beneath some of the questions, I have included a brief explanatory sentence from Elder Christensen. All this is directly quoted from his article.

1. Do I read the scriptures daily?
Some of the more remarkable personal revelations have been directly related to individual study of the scriptures.

2. Do I really pray and not just say prayers?

3. Is my fasting meaningful?  Do I do more than just get hungry?

4. Do I go to bed early and get up early?

5. Am I essentially a happy person?  If not, why not?

6. Do I work hard?
Laziness and spirituality do not go together.

7. Am I more concerned about how rather than where I serve?
There is no calling in the Church of Jesus Christ that does not require more of us than the talents we bring to the assignment if we magnify our callings.

8. Do I love everyone, even my enemies?

9. Am I striving to "become one" with what I know I ideally should be?
As long as what we do in our actual lives is beneath the level where we know we should be, we rob ourselves of spirituality.

10. Do I share my testimony with others?

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As I read through the list today, I see that I have a lot of work to do, but I am not discouraged. I see that I have a basic level of strength in many of these areas. And I see that I have made great improvements in many areas over just the last few months. This gives me great hope.

I've been thinking a lot about question number nine and the faith in Christ that is required to make this happen. Perhaps I will write more about becoming one with Christ in a later post.