Healthy Spirituality

"Make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, virtue with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with devotion, devotion with mutual affection, mutual affection with love." 2 Pt 1:7

The word supplement in today's text from 2 Peter makes me smile. Sounds like Peter runs a spiritual health food store, and maybe he does. Our spiritual health depends on behavior. We must live faith not just talk about, and a life of virtue, learning, self control, endurance, devotion and mutual affection surely will put us on the path to healthy relationships with God and others.

But experience also teaches us that trying to get healthy all at once almost always leads to failure. Going to mass three times in a day but then not again for three weeks does little to bolster our faith. It would be like taking five days worth of vitamins in the hope that we would be fortified for the next five days. In fact, if we do this our body simply eliminates them.

We need to live healthy lives each day in order to be healthy. The same is true for the life of our spirit. We need daily to learn a little something, offer a simple devotion, endure a trial and offer affection to others, especially those who are struggling. Living well each day builds up our strength and our faith. Eventually a day at a time, we grow into strong believers who can  withstand very difficult trials.

Today exercise your faith. 

What are the faith practices that have helped you most over the years?