The spiritual journey is messy, but devotion and trust bring us closer to God, Karin Hadadan shares. In the same way, Rebecca Simon’s Finding God Every Day helps students hear God in the midst of life’s storms. Read below to get clarity on this mess.
A spiritual journey is often described as quiet—meditation cushions, enlightened moments, an unfolding of continuous peace. But in reality, it’s even worse. It’s as small as a calm river and more like a blender: moments of clarity swirling alongside doubt, joy clashing with fear, and success that only comes after failure.
The truth is that walking with God does not mean running away from chaos; it means learning to navigate it.
One of the biggest misconceptions is that once the prayer is answered—once the blessing comes—the work is done. People expect the arrival of a dream to mean ease, stability, and continuous flow. But often, the opposite happens. When a blessing comes, the heart is happy, but the mind is disobedient. Suddenly, attachments come in: attachments to results, to timelines, to certain ways of appearing. And when life doesn’t reflect the mental script, tension builds.
The heart, however, operates on a different frequency. The heart already knows what is true. It is based on eternity and is not bound by fear, time, or thought. The idea, on the other hand, covers the whole old story: It’s very difficult. It’s slippery. I don’t fit in. It investigates the past, awakening patterns and beliefs that were meant to be buried. This conflict—between the solid consciousness of the heart and the chaos of the mind—is at the heart of the spiritual journey.
At such times, many look outside for answers. Sign, read, quote, friend advice. But no matter how clever they are, these things cannot replace the word of God within. Outside wisdom can point the way, but it cannot calm the storm. Only silence, prayer, and devotion are possible.
And surrender is the hardest part. It feels easier to control, to adjust, to seek clarity now. But the spiritual path asks something deeper: Will you trust when you can’t see? Will you release if you want to catch? Will you allow God’s plan to suffice?
The beauty of a blender is that it strips us down to reality. It humbles us when we believe that we have “arrived,” and forces us to remember that we are not God—we are His creation. Our role is not to direct things that happen, but to live, to play, to see joy in small things, to be present in what is already there.
The gift of the journey is this: every spiral ends in remembrance. Every doubt leads you back to hope. Every fall teaches you how to wake up. And in time, you begin to see that nothing is wasted—not confusion, not waiting, not even chaos.
The spiritual journey is not about escaping the filth, but about finding God within you. And in that space, you remember: everything is fine, it always has been, and it will be.
