1. Cost 

Yes, there is a cost to spiritual direction, but anything worth doing requires sacrifice. As a woman, I am used to sacrificing my needs and money for the sake of my family. I often thought, “I’m not worth the expense when I could spend this money on groceries, clothing, or the needs of my children.” Yet God kept whispering to me, “You are worth it to me. You are my child, and I want you to enjoy good things too.” 

Eventually, I realized, the cost of one session a month wasn’t going to break the bank. More importantly, my spiritual health was a sacrificial gift to my family. Through direction, I experienced healing of deep emotional wounds, established healthy boundaries from familial guilt, and experienced freedom in Christ through self-awareness. I also discovered a loving, discerning, and gentle relationship with God that continues to make me a better mother, wife, and friend. 

The small cost has proven worth. No one has gone without, starved, or gone to school without clothes, or missed the money. Instead, my whole family has benefited from the transformation God has worked in me. 

2. Time

Busyness is the modern-day mantra. I often hear, “I just can’t make the time.” For a long time, I made the same excuse. Where would I find one extra hour to sit still and feel like I was doing nothing? But just like the money, I had to ask myself: what is one hour a month in the grand scheme of my life? We all make time for what matters most: kids’ sports, yoga, cell service, Netflix binges, Starbucks runs, and trips to the nail salon. Where we spend our time and money reveals what we love.

I had to wrestle with: Do I love God enough to invest in my relationship with Him the way I would if my marriage were struggling, if my car broke down, or my hair’s roots needed covering? Am I immediately scouring for a way to “fix it”? These choices confront us daily. 

I realized I wanted Christ. I wanted healing. I wanted to be loved. And when we want something deeply enough, we will find a way. The real question is: are you at that point? 

3. I’m not “doing” anything. 

Another common excuse is the belief that our investment of time and money ought to result in immediate, tangible results. Thank you, Enlightenment thinking and post-modern consumerism. If you’ve heard the saying, “God’s economy is different from the world’s economy,” it’s true. Just look at the prophets, priests, kings, Christ, and His followers— God rarely chooses the most productive, talented, impressive, or wealthiest to accomplish His purposes. 

The Kingdom of God is less about doing and more about being. God cares more about how you align your time and money with His purposes, trusting in His provision. Doing with God looks like partnership, dependency, peace, stillness, silence, and trust. It begins with being rooted and grounded in God’s love, and the best way to grow is through prayer. 

Spiritual direction is a way of being deeper in prayer. It creates space within you for the Spirit to move freely, producing the fruits of the Spirit in your life and shaping your choices. The “doing” of direction is the practice of learning to be—attentive, responsive, and present with God in all things. 

Which brings me to my next excuse…

4. It takes too long

It wasn’t easy at first. Breaking old habits never is. A few months in, you will feel like quitting. Wondering if it is worth it, or why nothing is changing. But God is never in a hurry. The baggage you are carrying didn’t show up overnight; you’ve been collecting it for years. Like losing weight, transformation takes commitment, hard work, time, lifestyle shifts, hard choices, and more courage than we often have alone. 

As long as it took to get where you are, it may take just as long to step out of that rut. I love this quote from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. It carried me through, reminding me to persevere. Even now, I continue to trust in God’s slow work in my life, watching as God’s love gradually reshapes me from the inside out. 

 “Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability—
and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own goodwill)
will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.” 

5. I’m too far gone

The biggest hurdle for me was years of accepting lies that God couldn’t love me,  that I wasn’t enough, that my problems were too big, and my wounds too embedded. I’d made my shame and guilt my best friends, and the condemning voices on repeat my confidants. I truly believed that nothing in my life could change—I was too far gone. So how was spiritual direction going to make a difference? 

When I finally started, I told my director bluntly, “I don’t know how this is going to change anything for me, but I am at the end of my rope, and I want to believe I am loved by God.” She had to sift through years of resistance, but I’m grateful she didn’t give up, and neither did Jesus. 

I discovered I was not too far gone; I just had a lot to work through. That’s the beauty of spiritual direction: you don’t have to sift through it alone. A director is a trusted companion who helps you shovel through the lies, shame, guilt, and pain we all accumulate— a pile of rubbish that needs clearing so we can uncover what’s true and life-giving. 

For me, spiritual direction was the once-a-month, hourly sacred space, sifting through the muck in search of gold with a wise companion and the gentle guidance of the Holy Spirit. And I could never have done it alone. 

Are you done making excuses? 

Are you ready to say yes to the person God desires you to be?