that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, Ephesians 3:16
What actually is spiritual strength? Where does it come from? Is it from intellectual reasoning? Is it from theological argument? Is it from the severe obedience to doctrines? Is it from human passion? Is it from a steel will of direction or stance?
Obviously … no. If there be ANY spiritual strength is that it comes via the Holy Spirit in the inner center of the human being, far deeper than thought or reason, deeper than emotion or feelings, and far beyond all that encompasses the outward existence of the person. Life may present many stages, variations, changes, moods, ideas, attitudes, and feelings; yet there is a deeper strength that does not let us go. Could it be a Presence that is not generated by ourselves?
This is the true and real nature of spirituality. It doesn’t come by the forcefulness of conviction of our will. We are ‘strengthened’ THROUGH (and from) His Spirit in our inner being. This reality will be tested within you.
When your mind is totally bewildered by the complexity of the situation, and all the arguments lead to the assumption that a mistake has been made, a wrong path has been taken, everything seems to be false and all the feelings are churning with anxiousness and fear, or when there are no feelings at all because fear has petrified everything into stagnation, and when circumstances are all arguing in the the opposite direction of that which we are going, in which the purest moments of worship and fellowship with God our path has already been determined. It is in these spaces and times of our lives that our true spirituality and inward strength is proven and abides: that standing we cannot go forward; that holding when you cannot do anything; that all the forces are determined to sweep us off our feet. That is when the test and depth of our spirituality is measured. The opposite is to be carried away by argument, reasoning, appearance, circumstance, and all such things. Those prove the lack of spirituality.
In summary, true spirituality is not to live on the outside; it is to live with God in the depths of your inner being where the Holy Spirit resides.
*selah*
(meditate on these things)