Questions to Ask for Spiritual Growth
Twenty questions to ask yourself about your own faith: what you actually practice rather than what you would claim, where doubt sits, who you still owe an apology, and what you would have to give up to grow. Suited to a journal, a retreat day, or a conversation with a spiritual director.
The questions
Open any question for the note
When did I last feel genuinely close to God, and what was I doing at the time?
Why ask it
Starting from a remembered moment rather than a definition keeps the answer honest. Most people find the setting is unremarkable, walking, driving, sitting with someone, which tells them where to go looking rather than what to add to their routine.
What do I actually do most days, as opposed to what I would call my practice?
Why ask it
Say the real number of minutes out loud. The gap between the described practice and the lived one is the only reliable starting point, and it is usually smaller and messier than people are willing to admit.
Which part of my practice am I keeping out of habit after it stopped doing anything?
Why ask it
Growth is often subtraction. A discipline continued out of guilt quietly teaches you that faith is an obligation to endure, and naming it gives you the option of resting it rather than resenting it.
What do I believe because I have tested it, and what do I believe because I was raised in it?
Why ask it
Inherited belief is not false, but it is untried, and untried belief tends to collapse suddenly rather than gradually. Sorting the two shows you which parts of your faith have never had weight put on them.
What am I asking for most often, and what does that say about what I actually trust?
Why ask it
Your recurring requests are a more accurate record of your beliefs than your stated ones. If nearly all of them are about control, safety, or being proved right, that pattern is worth sitting with rather than correcting straight away.
Where do my actions and my stated beliefs not line up?
Why ask it
Answer with a place and a name, not a category. Generosity in principle and a tight grip on money in practice is a specific contradiction; a general confession of hypocrisy costs nothing and changes nothing.
Whose faith do I quietly envy, and what do they do that I do not?
Why ask it
Envy points accurately at what you want. Often the difference turns out to be something ordinary and repeatable rather than a temperament you were not given, which is more useful than admiration.
What am I avoiding in prayer because I do not want the answer?
Why ask it
Most people know immediately, which is the point. The avoided subject, a relationship, a job, a habit, is usually the live edge of your spiritual life, and everything else is quieter ground you already occupy.
What does doubt feel like when it arrives, and what do I usually do with it?
Why ask it
Distinguishing intellectual doubt from exhaustion or grief matters, because they need different responses and are constantly mistaken for each other. Notice whether your habit is to argue with it, hide it, or wait it out.
Who knows the honest state of my inner life, and when did I last tell them?
Why ask it
If the answer is nobody, or nobody for over a year, that is the finding. Unwitnessed faith drifts without anyone noticing, including you, and the fix is a specific person and a date rather than a resolution.
Who have I wronged that I have not made right?
Why ask it
Name the person and what you would have to say. Spiritual practice that never reaches an apology has a habit of becoming very sophisticated at avoiding one.
What am I unwilling to forgive, and what is holding that in place?
Why ask it
The second half is the honest part, since refusal is usually protecting something: a truth being acknowledged, a fear of it happening again, a debt you do not want cancelled. Naming what forgiveness would cost you is more use than resolving to feel differently.
What am I doing for others that is mostly about being seen doing it?
Why ask it
Mixed motives are normal, so the goal is not purity but accuracy. What matters is whether you would keep doing it if nobody knew, and that test is worth running on one specific commitment rather than all of them.
What have I asked for and received and never gone back to acknowledge?
Why ask it
Gratitude is easier to preach than to itemize. Naming two or three specific answered things usually shifts something more than a general resolution to be thankful ever does.
When did I last change my mind about something I believed, and what changed it?
Why ask it
A faith that has not moved in ten years is either settled or unexamined, and only you can tell which. Whether the cause was a book, a person, or an experience tells you what you are actually persuaded by.
Which text or teaching do I keep returning to, and what am I looking for in it?
Why ask it
The passage you reread is a diagnosis. People go back for reassurance, for permission, or for a challenge, and knowing which one you are seeking explains why the same words keep working on you.
What have I learned about God through something that went badly?
Why ask it
Ask this without forcing a tidy resolution. An answer that arrives too neatly is often a lesson borrowed from someone else's story, and it is fine to conclude that you are still in the middle of it.
What would I have to give up to grow in the direction I say I want?
Why ask it
This is the question people skip. Growth usually costs time, an income, a friendship, or an image of yourself, and if you cannot name a cost you are probably describing a preference rather than an intention.
If I continue exactly as I am for ten years, who do I become?
Why ask it
Extending the current trajectory is more revealing than picturing an ideal self, because nothing new has to be imagined. If the answer is uncomfortable, the useful part is which single habit is driving it.
What is one thing I could start this week that I would not need to feel inspired to keep doing?
Why ask it
Ends with something small enough to survive a bad week. Ambitious plans made at the peak of reflection collapse on the first ordinary Tuesday, so the test of a good answer is whether it still works when you feel nothing.
How to Sit With These Questions
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
How to Work Through Them
Three Questions, Written Down
Answering all twenty in one sitting produces twenty summaries. Pick three, write the answers out longhand, and stop; the value is in the sentences you did not expect to write, and those only appear when you are not rushing to the next prompt.
Answer With Names and Dates
I should be more patient is not an answer. Last Tuesday with my brother, over the same subject as last month, is. Specifics are what you can act on and what you can recognize again in six weeks.
Separate Doubt From Exhaustion
Long stretches of feeling nothing in prayer are frequently a matter of sleep, grief, or overwork rather than belief. Before you rebuild your theology, check the last month for what would flatten anyone, and treat that first.
Say One Answer to One Person
Pick the answer you least want to say out loud and tell one trusted person, a friend, a director, an imam, a pastor. Spoken once, it stops being a private loop and becomes something you can be helped with.
Come Back in Three Months
Date the page and put a reminder in your calendar. Rereading your own answers is the only reliable way to tell movement from the feeling of movement, and it takes a season, not a week.
Common Pitfalls
Reaching for the Answer You Should Give
Years in a religious community teach you the acceptable response to every one of these questions. If your answer arrives instantly and sounds like something you have heard from a pulpit, write the second answer instead.
Confusing Reading About It With Doing It
Study is comfortable and can absorb every hour you meant to spend praying, serving, or apologizing. If your last three months of growth are entirely books and podcasts, the missing part is practice, not information.
Turning Reflection Into a Verdict
These questions surface gaps, and a long list of failures produces shame, which reliably stops people practicing at all. Take one item forward and let the rest sit until next time.
Rebuilding Everything at Once
A new dawn routine, a new discipline, a new commitment, and a difficult conversation all starting Monday will be gone by Friday. Choose the one that survives a bad week.
Three Ways to Use the List
A Quiet Half Hour
- 1When did I last feel close to God, and what was I doing
- 2What do I actually do most days
- 3What is one thing I could start this week without needing to feel inspired
An Honest Inventory
- 1Where my actions and my stated beliefs do not line up
- 2Who I have wronged and not made it right with
- 3What I am unwilling to forgive, and what holds it in place
- 4What I am avoiding in prayer
A Direction or Mentoring Conversation
- 1What I believe because I have tested it, and what I inherited
- 2Whose faith I quietly envy, and what they do that I do not
- 3What I would have to give up to grow the way I claim to want
- 4Who I become if I carry on exactly as I am