You Can't Hack Holiness

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There’s a genre of online videos, reels or shorts, depending on your platform, that offer an endless stream of life hacks or better ways to do things. They start with something like, “I was today years old when I learned such and such,” or “I learned this from my housekeeper.” The one that gets me the most is “you’ve been doing this wrong,” even though, upon watching, I see that I haven’t. I don’t know about you, but I am often taken in by these little tidbits, even though I rarely learn anything new or remember the information when I could use a life hack. There’s something just so attractive to me about easier, better ways to do things.

There probably are a lot of things in life that could be accomplished more cleverly or efficiently, but the spiritual life isn’t one of them. Unfortunately. If I  could find a way to give spiritual hacks, easier ways to do the spiritual life that actually worked, well, this podcast would be a lot more popular! And my own life would be a lot easier. However, there’s nothing easy or hackable about the spiritual life. It requires learning from mistakes, growth, reflection, humility, moving through suffering, discernment, and more things that are hard. At least, that’s how it works for me.

But not just me. Peter is a case in point. Throughout his years as a disciple, following Jesus around, working with him, learning from him, he did some pretty dippy things. He was consistently unfiltered and awkward. We don’t know if Jesus’s rebuke, “Get behind me, Satan,” was the first and only time he got that exasperated with Peter, but I’m guessing it wasn’t. Besides being annoying a lot of the time, Peter also betrayed Jesus in his darkest hour and deserted him. Let’s just say that Peter had a lot of room for growth.

When I spend some time with Peter in this Sunday’s First Reading, I can’t help but think of how far our friend has come. He was the guy who rarely did anything right, but look at him now: preaching, teaching, and saying the things people need to hear. He holds them in rapt attention, and they are so moved that they want nothing more than to follow the Christ they’ve met through Peter. Peter has changed a lot since the bumbling doofus we first met in the Gospels, and I appreciate being privy to his growth.

Spiritual growth is a hard thing to detect, especially in myself. In fact, I can’t see it except in hindsight. Looking back, I can see how much I’ve changed as I’ve grown into my faith. As a young adult, I was probably just as awkward as Peter. More often than not, when God, often disguised as life, invited me to grow, it felt hard, and I would have preferred to stay the same. My resistance to change probably made me miss some opportunities, but there were other times when, despite pain or discomfort, I leaned into growth and did the hard things. And I grew. Now, after coming through the experiences, I’m glad I learned what I did along the way. There’s no way around it – I’ve had to do the work to grow, and I have to keep on doing it. You can’t hack the spiritual life.

That’s the message I hear in the Gospel too. We can’t hack our way to holiness by jumping over a fence. We have to put on our grown-up pants and enter through the gate. There may be lots of paths to holiness, but none of them is easy; they all require growth. There are infinite ways to be a disciple of Christ, and there’s no one easy way to do that either. We all have to do the work to grow into a life of holiness. We have to listen to God’s call, respond, and do the hard things that growing invites rather than take an easy, false way.

I say this with confidence, but the truth is that I would rather find an easier way to do almost anything. The reality is, though, that although I do appreciate good stain-fighting tips, life hacks can’t help me grow spiritually. The experiences of others can be valuable, but I have to do my own work. Like Peter, I have to blunder my way through discipleship and grow bit by bit. I’ll do some pretty dumb things along the way, and every now and then, I’ll get something right.

We cannot hack our way into the Kingdom of God. That’s something we work to build bit by bit, something that emerges from within us as we keep growing in the spiritual life. We have to be ourselves and allow God to transform us along the way. The good news is that we don’t have to be perfect to enter in; God welcomes us however we are when we come.

So, if you’re a blundering disciple like Peter, be a blunderer. If you’re a timid follower, be timid. If you’re someone who has it all together, well, I don’t even know you, but, good for you. God will love each of us as we are — and invite us to be more. In God’s invitation to be more, there will likely be some challenge too. That’s okay — challenge is how we grow. God is inviting us to do hard things, to be open, to respond, to grow. Someday we’ll look back and see how far we’ve come.

Thanks be to God.

 

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For Reflection:

  • When you look back over your life, how have you grown, spiritually speaking?

  • What has helped you to grow — experiences, mistakes, other people?

  • How has God been with you as you’ve grown?

  • Is there any growing that God is calling you to do now? What do you need in order to grow? Why not just take a moment to talk this over with God?

 

By Sister Leslie Keener, CDP

Sister Leslie Keener, CDP is the director of God Space, a vibrant spirituality ministry building community in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. A Sister of Divine Providence, she holds a Master’s in Ministry and a Certificate in Spiritual Direction and Retreats from Creighton University. Sister Leslie guides retreats, offers spiritual direction, and nurtures vocations within her community. Passionate about helping people encounter God in everyday life, she delights in meaningful conversations, dancing, and spicy food.