“If you want to become a good writer, you need to do three things. Read a lot, listen well and deeply, and write a lot. And don’t think so much. Just enter the heat of words and sounds and colored sensations and keep your pen moving across the page.”

Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones

Given that the way you do anything is the way you do everything, that quote struck me this morning. Just substitute the word “writer” with anything else that you’d like to be, and tweak a few of the other words, and the advice holds true.

Including “Christian”. 

One of the challenges that Jesus repeatedly threw out to his listeners was to keep their eyes and ears open (“If you have eyes to see and ears to hear…”). Just like the quote above, Jesus seems to be saying that spiritual growth is a matter of deeply seeing and hearing, and then DOING things. 

“If you want to become a Christ-follower/spiritually mature person, you need to do three things. Read a lot/observe other spiritually mature people. Listen to the world around you and be present to it, and DO spiritually mature things—service, acts of love and compassion, etc. 

And don’t think so much. 

Just enter the heat of the world and sounds and colored sensations, and keep walking/following/doing the best you can.”