More about me and my spiritual journey….

ne of the deepest yearnings of my spiritual life has been what Saint Ignatius of Loyola called “the More”—magis: the invitation to continually seek and respond to God’s greater love and purpose. I am profoundly grateful for the grace and gift of faith that led me, as a young adolescent, to give my initial “Yes” to Jesus as my Lord and Savior and to receive the gift of Baptism. From those early years, my faith and interior spiritual life have been at the heart of who I am. So, too, has been the conviction that life itself is a sacred calling and vocation—expressed especially through more than 35 years of marriage to my wife, Sue; through being a father and now a grandfather; and through the various ministries to which I have been called.

These streams—the More, my continuing “Yes” to Jesus, and my understanding of life as vocation—came together in a profound way during a silent retreat at Christ in the Desert Monastery in 2014. During that retreat, I experienced God’s proclamation over Jesus at His baptism as being spoken to me as well: “Timm, you are my Beloved.”

The simplicity and mystery of those words have continued to unfold in powerful ways ever since. Perhaps most significantly, they have shaped my understanding of the purpose of the spiritual life—the purpose of the Christian life itself. I have come to imagine the spiritual journey as a timeline: at one end, “My initial ‘Yes’ to Jesus”; at the other, “Heaven—my death.” What, then, is meant to be happening throughout the entire journey between those two points?

The answer and living vision I find in 2 Peter 1:3–4 is that, through God’s grace and through Christ, we are invited to “participate in the divine nature.” Our destiny is not simply to believe in God or someday arrive in heaven, but to become increasingly transformed into the likeness of Christ and to enter ever more deeply into the life and love of the Holy Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is what the Church speaks of as sanctification, divinization, or theosis: growing daily into an ever-deepening, personal, intimate relationship of love with God.

For many years, I settled for a much smaller vision of the Gospel—a vision focused primarily on the contrast between hell and heaven. I was largely unaware of the deeper invitation and destiny offered to us through, with, and in Christ: to become fully alive as God’s beloved and to participate in His divine life. The “More” is not simply about doing more for God; it is about becoming more deeply receptive to God’s love and more fully alive in Christ Jesus.

It is this living vision that brings me great joy and inspiration as I accompany others through spiritual direction and spiritual formation. I am humbled by the privilege of walking with others as they discover, receive, and increasingly live from the profound truth that they, too, are God’s beloved.