Seek, Surrender, Be Sanctified — A Rhythm of Spiritual Formation
Over the past several years I have been trying to articulate something I have experienced in my own walk with Christ and observed in the early spiritual lives of my children.
The simple language that has emerged for me is:
Seek. Surrender. Be Sanctified.
These are not rigid stages or formulas. Rather, they describe a rhythm I believe is present throughout the Christian life. In many ways the Christian journey is cyclical. We seek God, eventually encounter places where our own strength or understanding reaches its limits, surrender more deeply, and then experience transformation that leads us to seek Him again at a deeper level. Over time these repeated cycles of seeking, surrender, and transformation begin to shape the believer’s life in profound ways.
As I reflected on my own experience, I noticed that Christians across history have described remarkably similar patterns. The language may differ, but the movement is surprisingly consistent. What changes over time is not merely knowledge about God but the center of gravity of a person’s life — from building and proving oneself for God toward abiding in Him and allowing His life to work through us.
The Pattern in Scripture: Jesus and the Formation of the Disciples
Jesus did not simply give the disciples information. He formed them. Their formation followed a pattern.
Seek. Jesus’ first invitation was simple: “Come, follow me.” The disciples began by seeking. They listened. They learned. They watched Jesus. They asked questions. They participated in ministry. Peter embodies this stage beautifully. When Jesus walked on water, Peter did not stay safely in the boat. He stepped out. He sought Jesus boldly.
Surrender. Yet seeking eventually led the disciples into crisis. Their expectations of the Messiah were shattered at the cross. Peter’s most painful moment came when he denied Jesus three times. From the outside, this looked like failure. But Jesus already knew it would happen. And rather than removing Peter from the journey, Jesus used that moment as part of Peter’s formation. Peter’s confidence in himself had to collapse before he could truly rely on Christ.
Be Sanctified. After the resurrection, Jesus restores Peter with a simple but profound question: “Do you love me?” Then comes the call: “Feed my sheep.” Peter becomes a courageous leader of the early church. The man who once sank in the water and denied Jesus now boldly proclaims the gospel at Pentecost.
His journey illustrates something essential: Failure and doubt, when met with surrender, often become instruments of spiritual formation.
The Pattern in Christian Spiritual Tradition
Christian teachers across the centuries recognized similar movements in the life of faith. Early church fathers spoke of purification, illumination, and union with God, and later spiritual writers such as St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross described the spiritual journey through three classic paths:
The Purgative Way — Turning from sin and beginning to pursue God.
The Illuminative Way — Growing in understanding, humility, and surrender as God reveals deeper truths.
The Unitive Way — Living in a deeper union with God characterized by love, humility, and freedom.
| Ancient Language | Personal Language |
|---|---|
| Purgative | Seek |
| Illuminative | Surrender |
| Unitive | Be Sanctified |
The Christian tradition consistently understood that the Christian life was not simply about accumulating knowledge or following rules. It was about transformation of the heart.
The Pattern in Modern Faith Formation: The Critical Journey
A modern framework that echoes these ancient insights is described in The Critical Journey by Janet Hagberg and Robert Guelich. Their research outlines six stages of spiritual development.
Stage 1 — Recognition of God. A beginning awareness of God.
Stage 2 — Life of Discipleship. Learning beliefs, practices, and community identity.
Stage 3 — Productive Life. Serving, leading, and becoming highly active in ministry.
These first three stages are healthy and important. But they are still largely centered around external activity. Then something happens.
Stage 4 — The Journey Inward. Believers begin confronting deeper questions of identity, motivation, and surrender. The assumptions that once supported their faith begin to feel insufficient, and they are drawn into a more personal and sometimes unsettling search for God.
Many believers eventually encounter what the authors call “The Wall.” This may come through doubt, intellectual questions, disappointment, personal failure, or suffering. At the Wall, previous answers stop working. This is where many Christians feel lost. But according to Hagberg and Guelich, the Wall is not the end of faith. It is the doorway to deeper faith.
Stage 5 — The Journey Outward. Faith becomes less about proving oneself and more about loving others.
Stage 6 — The Life of Love. A mature faith characterized by humility, compassion, freedom, and deep trust in God.
A Hard Reality: Where Most Christians Stop
A large majority of Christians remain in Stages 2 and 3 of the Critical Journey. They learn doctrine. They serve faithfully. They work hard for the church. But many never move through the Wall into deeper transformation.
This is not a criticism. In fact, these stages are often where vibrant Christian communities live and serve. But they tend to center faith around activity, productivity, and certainty.
The transition beyond these stages often requires something far deeper than simply enduring hardship. Many believers experience suffering or crisis yet remain anchored in earlier stages. Moving through the Wall typically involves a more profound surrender — often the gradual laying down of identity, control, and even the desire to define one’s own purpose.
This is why the Wall can feel so disorienting, and why some people move through it slowly over many years. In many ways it reveals something essential about the Christian life:
The goal of the Christian journey is not success, but surrender.
People often have a place in their spiritual journey where their faith feels most stable. Some remain rooted primarily in learning and serving. Others gradually move toward deeper surrender and trust. Movement through these stages is rarely linear, and each person’s journey unfolds differently. Yet those who continue through the Wall often discover a deeper, freer, more resilient faith.
Another way to understand the shift between these stages involves how believers understand their gifts. In the earlier stages, Christians often focus on discovering and using the gifts God has given them. In the later stages, something subtle but profound begins to shift. Rather than primarily seeing themselves as people using gifts for God, believers increasingly recognize their dependence on Him in everything. Their posture becomes less about what they bring to God and more about allowing God to work through them.
A Question Worth Asking
If we were to imagine ourselves twenty years from now — what kind of faith would we hope to have?
Not simply what we believe. But who we have become.
Perhaps someone who continues to live the rhythm of spiritual formation — someone who continues to:
Seek God courageously.
Surrender to Him honestly.
And grow steadily in sanctification throughout their life.
Over time such a person may discover that moments of questioning, failure, and even the experience of the Wall were not interruptions to their faith, but part of how God was forming them.
In time their faith may become marked less by certainty and achievement and more by humility, love, courage, and trust in God. Such lives become quiet witnesses to the reality of the Kingdom of God.