The nature of our spiritual existence is that the unseen has more significance for our lives than what can be seen, though the physical world is the context in which we experience that which transcends and is beyond it. We encounter and are encountered by what exceeds what the natural world offers, but what is readily apparent is not what is most important.
For this reason, we need to develop an awareness and experience an awakening to the spiritual because our natural senses are good at this first world, but can be an impediment to sensing the reality underlying it. While developing an ability to discern spiritual realities, to notice these within ourselves, and in the world which surrounds us, cannot be accomplished according to a formula or simple procedure, we can open ourselves to this growth in particular ways.
If youe cannot be trusted with worldly riches, you will not be trusted with the true riches. Luke 16:11
This saying of Jesus, while addressing faithfulness or lack thereof regarding wealth, speaks in principle to our discussion. The world of tangible, seen, physical things is the place where we learn how to become more attuned to the spiritual. The heavenly must be discovered within the earthly, the spiritual within the physical, if it is to be found at all.
Attention to a larger frame of reality, deeper meanings and movements, begins with the awareness that what is ultimately true is disguised in the garb of created things. Until we recognize that we are seeing through a glass darkly with our natural senses, we won’t seek and be open to another way of apprehending reality. Here is the foundational awareness for all spiritual progress.
For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Romans 1:25
The “exchange” Paul describes is not something we actually did consciously, as if we move from a deep awareness of spiritual reality to a shallow attention to the mere shadows of what is real. Instead, we all simply begin with this naïveté about reality. The substitute of created for Creator is inherent in our human condition from the beginning.
We question this inadequate perspective when we encounter or experience something which positively transcends the earthly, or when the natural completely fails us. In other words, we glimpse either something beyond, or come to see the clear insufficiency of what is temporal and tangible. Our experience will be either exhilarating or disillusioning, but either way what is seen loses its power to transfix our gaze.
Jesus talks about what moth and rust corrupts, and thieves can break through and steal, what he calls earthly treasure, which we come to recognize as the insufficiency and limitations of the earthly (Matthew 6:19-21). The treasure in heaven is what is permanent. We shift by either the pain of losing what is earthly, or the amazement of experiencing what is not of this world.
Once we are opened to what our eyes cannot see, we start seeking the eternal, the permanent, the true, and the real. This is the work of God, the way the Spirit is constantly drawing us beyond our initial limited assumptions. In fact, this awareness and awakening is itself much more the substance of a new spirituality than we might realize. To simply become open to what is real will bring about the needed spiritual transformation, not instantly, but progressively.