You are a body, soul, and spirit.

Or are you a body, mind, and heart?

Or should I say you are made up of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual components?

The problem with all these lists is the commas.

You are an indivisible person, a complex and mysterious creature who had a beginning but in the final assessment, if Christ is to be believed, will have no end. Through the technology of language and the miracle of mutual consciousness, I’m typing words and you’re reading them and though we may not know each other we’re having a moment together. It’s a wonder to be alive on earth with you. 

It is a wonder to be alive, and it’s painful. Whether our brokenness was baked in from birth or came through a broken world depends on your theology, but no Christian denies that sooner or later each of us has wounds in need of healing and desires in need of ordering. And while all our brokenness doesn’t discount one cent of our God-given worth, it does make us sad and hurtful creatures who are willing to try all kinds of things to be happy and at peace.

We go to church for spiritual needs and community, to counseling for emotional needs, to the doctor for physical needs. All good things, for the most part. But like the lists at the top of this essay, the commas try to separate what God has joined together.

Wise spiritual teachers know all aspects of a person are interrelated. To treat someone’s brokenness, you must treat all of them.

Many years ago, when Chris Hall was a professor at Eastern University, a student struggling with spiritual problems came in for help. Chris looked at his tired face and asked, ​“How much sleep are you getting?” The student, it turned out, had been staying up until 2 am watching Star Trek. Chris refused to talk to him until he started going to bed at a decent time. After a few nights of good sleep, the student returned to Chris with remarkable clarity regarding the matter about which he was seeking advice. 

A few months ago, when Chris and I were at a retreat, we were placed in a prayer group together. I was under a heavy burden of anxiety and oppressive thoughts. Chris looked at me and with a knowing voice from which I knew there was no hiding said, ​“What’s up?” So I shared at length while he and the group listened. When I finished, rather than offer rebuke or advice — both of which are within bounds for our relationship — Chris spoke a father’s blessing with a spiritual authority that, like a strong breeze, blew the thoughts from my mind and lifted the heaviness off my chest for the remainder of the retreat.

The point of these stories isn’t that there are simple fixes. Wholeness, we all know, is a long and winding road extending past the horizon. Instead, I draw from them two encouragements.

First, as you seek healing and wholeness, invite Jesus to speak into every place and hour of your waking and working and sleeping life, especially those areas where he may currently be excluded. 

Second, while it’s true some miracles only come slowly, and spiritual formation is the slowest of all human movements (to quote songwriter Andy Squyres and theologian Tom Oden), it’s also true that sometimes miracles come quickly and spiritual formation is the fastest of all human movements. Think of Mary Magdalene or the man who was paralyzed by the pool for 38 years. The entirety of their person — whatever model of personhood you use — was transformed with lightning speed and power through contact with Jesus. 

Was their formation finalized? No. 

Did they receive an immunity from all future sin and sadness and hurt? Clearly not. 

Were they given, like a patient whose dislocated knee is reset by a doctor, a jolt of divine intervention as a starting place from which they could walk out their healing? Absolutely. 

Such jolts, like a defibrillator paddle to the chest, are not the norm and not what sustain us. But sometimes you need one to get your heart going again. If you’re in need of such an intervention, don’t stop asking God for it. If you know someone who needs one, pray they’ll receive it, and make yourself available as the instrument through which it may come. And if you’ve experienced a miracle in the past, ask God to make the memory of it fresh once more, that you may have strength for the long and slow formation of the soul, which — in Willard’s model at least — is ​“that dimension of the person that interrelates all of the other dimensions so that they form one life.”