The Spiritual Maturation That Leads Beyond Institutional Dependency: When God Calls Us Into Direct Communion With Him Beyond Traditional Churches, Institutional Hierarchies, and Dogmatic Religious Systems

 For those who feel like they are being led beyond the boundaries of institutionalized forms of faith, overly controlling religious environments, and community systems that seem only to inhibit their spiritual growth, and who may still be trying to make sense of those experiences, I just want to reassure you that it's entirely possible to still have a relationship with God outside of the church, and also outside of any other environment that may have become spiritually suffocating rather than spiritually life-giving.

In fact, it is a normal part of the spiritual maturation process for our level of consciousness to evolve beyond the collective mindset of entire congregations, their organizational structures, and the pastors and other religious authorities who oversee them, into a place where our own mental, emotional, and spiritual intelligence can flourish in a way that otherwise wouldn't have been possible if we had stayed yoked to those soul-stifling religious frameworks, leaders, communities, and systems.

This means that God actually wants us to be set free from dependency on these external systems of religious authority, institutional validation, and spiritual mediation.

This is because the purpose of our spiritual journey is not to remain perpetually dependent upon external religious authorities, institutional systems, and congregational expectations at the expense of our own spiritual growth. Rather, our own calling is to awaken to the Divine presence within ourselves, in the innermost depths of our being, where we are then able to tap into an inward reality of divine communion with God that is not contingent upon a lifelong dependency upon churches, pastors, hierarchical institutions, and dogmatically rigid religious systems.

While, of course, at one point in time those things may have had their place in a more infantile state of our spiritual development, they were never intended to become the permanent destination of our spiritual journey. This is because God is actually an ever-present reality inside of us that does not require perpetual external mediation in order to be personally known through our own inward experience of Him.

This means that there comes a point when our own journey is no longer simply about mindlessly believing what others tell us about God and then automatically falling in line with their expectations. Rather, when we reach a greater level of spiritual maturity, our own journey takes us away from being completely dependent upon external mediation for our understanding of God and what our relationship and identity are "supposed" to look like, and it becomes one of discovering unmediated communion with God, receiving personal revelation, embracing our sovereign identity in God, and experiencing profound inner transformation outside of externally imposed religious expectations.

As we continue to follow this path of spiritual maturation and unmediated communion with God, we may find ourselves rejected, misunderstood, exiled, condemned, or ostracized by those who are still dependent upon churches, pastors, hierarchical institutions, and dogmatically rigid religious systems for their own understanding of what constitutes a "valid" spiritual path. But if we allow their approval to become more important than where God wants to take us, our very own relationship with the Divine is at stake. This is because if we neglect an unmediated relationship with Him, just to preserve the approval, acceptance, or validation of people who may be unwilling, unprepared, or unable to understand the inward journey of awakening, inner transformation, and spiritual maturity to which God is calling us, we risk turning away from the very path of spiritual maturation and divine intimacy to which He is leading us.

Of course, this journey may not be the easiest path to take, because it often requires us to let go of familiar certainties about what constitutes a valid relationship with God. It requires us to walk beyond the legalistic or traditionalistic expectations of others, and it requires us to remain faithful to the work that God is accomplishing within us, even when that journey is misunderstood, resisted, or rejected. Yet despite the difficulties we may encounter along the way, the fruit of this journey is a depth of divine intimacy, authenticity, spiritual maturity, inner freedom, integrity of conscience, and strength of character that no external system of religious authority can ever bestow upon us.

If you find yourself on a similar path as me, and of the countless others who have also heeded the call of the God who sets the captives free, just know that having the courage to follow Him wherever He leads, having the determination to remain true to His invitation, and having the faith to trust the transformation that God is bringing about within us—even as those things take us beyond the boundaries of what we've only ever been taught a relationship with God is supposed to look like—are all profoundly brave steps for us to take. And we should be proud of ourselves in the most spiritually healthy, humblest, and most gratitude-filled of ways for responding to God's invitation, even when the path is difficult and not everyone is able to understand it.



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