The spiritual director’s office is small but inviting. He welcomes me and we sit facing each other around a coffee table. He lights a candle and finally breaks the silence, ​“How is it with your soul?” 

Someone new to spiritual direction might wonder as I did during my first few sessions, Where is this going?

Perhaps it should be called spiritual indirection. Because in contrast with counseling, which tends to focus on needed solutions, spiritual direction focuses on discerning God’s work and voice — a process that can feel more like discovery than direction. 

Richard Foster writes:

Spiritual direction is an interpersonal relationship in which we learn how to grow, live, and love in the spiritual life. It involves a process through which one person helps another person understand what God is doing and saying.

diIf you want to learn more about spiritual direction and how it can be helpful (and, in certain cases, unhelpful), I can’t think of two better people to learn from than Jan Johnson and Trevor Hudson. Their free webinar Learning to Listen: Exploring the What, Why, and How of Spiritual Direction is on Tuesday, June 1 at 1pm ET. I hope you can join us.