How to Begin the Inward Journey with God Safely

Most of us spend much of our lives looking outward.

We focus on our responsibilities, relationships, work, church, family, health, money, culture, and the seemingly endless flow of problems demanding our attention. Even our spiritual lives can remain largely external. We learn more, attend more, serve more, and attempt to behave more faithfully.

Yet beneath all that activity is an inner world of ideas, desires, memories, wounds, fears, attachments, emotions, and expectations. These forces influence how we experience God, relate to others, understand ourselves, and respond to daily life. Much of the time, they operate beyond our awareness.

The inward journey with God is the process of becoming more conscious of what lies beneath the surface and inviting Jesus into those hidden places. It is not a retreat into self-absorption. It is part of learning to love God, others, ourselves, and creation more freely.

But there is a problem. What we uncover may be painful, confusing, or embarrassing. We may discover that the ideas governing our hearts differ from the beliefs we profess. We may encounter old wounds, disappointed desires, unresolved anger, or relational patterns we would rather leave unexplored.

The only sane person who would take that journey is someone who believes that, no matter what they discover, they will remain loved, protected, and secure. Otherwise, the inward journey can quickly become another exercise in self-condemnation.

That is why it must begin in an environment of safety and kindness.

Knowing God and Knowing Ourselves

The relationship between knowing God and knowing ourselves is difficult for some of us to accept. We may not have been trained to think of spiritual formation as the journey to know both Jesus and ourselves. It feels selfish. We may experience guilt for taking the time and effort to uncover the hidden ideas and desires governing us.

Aren’t we just supposed to die to ourselves?

David Benner writes:

“To suggest that knowing God plays an important role in Christian spirituality will not surprise anyone. To suggest that knowing self plays an equally important role will set off warning bells for many people.”

Benner points out that the relationship between knowing God and knowing ourselves has held an honored place in Christian theology for centuries. Thomas à Kempis argued that “a humble self-knowledge is a surer way to God than a search after deep learning.” Augustine prayed, “Grant, Lord, that I may know myself that I may know thee.” John Calvin wrote that nearly the whole of sacred doctrine consists of the knowledge of God and the knowledge of ourselves.

These two kinds of knowledge are interdependent. As we come to know Jesus, His character helps us recognize what is loving, truthful, healthy, and good. As we become more honest about ourselves, we begin to see where our hearts resist His love, misunderstand His character, or cling to identities and protections that keep us from freedom.

The two journeys belong together.

When the Inward Journey Becomes a Last Resort

The inward journey has a place in modern Christianity, though it is often limited to counseling rooms and recovery groups. It is considered acceptable to explore our stories, wounds, behaviors, relationships, and governing assumptions when things become really bad—when we are dealing with addiction, betrayal, divorce, serious illness, or death.

But if those same stories, wounds, behaviors, attachments, and assumptions remain unexplored during calmer seasons, is that really freedom?

For many of us, the inward journey becomes a last resort. We peer into our depths only after the systems we have used to control, distract, numb, or protect ourselves finally collapse.

We would rather study another book, listen to another sermon, join another program, or make another commitment than explore the fears, wounds, desires, and assumptions beneath our behavior. Yet our inner lives continue shaping us whether we examine them or not.

We cannot surrender something we cannot see. We cannot invite God into a wound we refuse to acknowledge. We cannot examine an idea that remains unconscious.

A New Way to Be Human

The inward journey is ultimately about freedom.

It is freedom from fear, anxiety, people-pleasing, harmful cultural pressures, conflict avoidance, destructive thought patterns, and unhealthy relational attachments. It is freedom from the need to control God, other people, and ourselves. It is freedom from having to fix everyone and everything around us—and freedom from having to fix ourselves.

This freedom is not merely about what we are rescued from. It is what we are rescued into: a new reality and a new way of life. It is freedom to wrestle, doubt, and explore; to rejoice, celebrate, and laugh; to grieve, lament, and cry; and to become more authentically ourselves in relationship with Jesus.

One way to describe spiritual formation is the ongoing journey toward interior freedom. It comes as we honestly explore our hearts with Jesus, uncovering dark and light ideas, healthy and unhealthy desires, and ordered and disordered attachments.

This is not only freedom from sin and death—freedoms we often push almost entirely into the future. It is freedom into a new way of being human right now.

Authenticity Is Not Self-Indulgence

The word authentic is often abused today, but it deserves to be recovered.

Isn’t authenticity part of what happens in a good therapy session or an AA meeting? We finally lower the facade and reveal our emotions, hurts, nightmares, expectations, fears, and anxieties in a place designed to be safe. We are not jockeying for position or trying to look impressive. We are raw, unfiltered, and messy.

And in the middle of that mess, healing often begins.

We generally do not heal because someone immediately tells us what to do. The environment itself—the kindness, patience, attentiveness, and acceptance—becomes part of the healing.

Some people distrust authenticity because they assume it means celebrating every idea or desire we discover within ourselves. But that is not what authenticity means. To become authentic is to allow Jesus to reveal the entirety of who we are—the good, the bad, and the ugly—and then to deal with whatever we find as He does: with truth, kindness, gentleness, and His ever-present invitation to form our hearts, bit by bit, closer to His.

Authenticity and humility are joined at the hip.

A Dog’s Life

One of the challenges of turning inward is that our hearts do not always feel safe enough to become authentic with God, ourselves, or anyone else. We fear being judged, shamed, shunned, or ignored.

Perhaps we have experienced church hurt, and our hidden ideas about God do not suggest He is someone to be trusted. We may not even experience Him as kind. Perhaps we have been betrayed by a family member, spouse, or friend, so becoming honest with another person sounds crazy. Why would we take the risk?

And perhaps we struggle to become honest with ourselves because, truth be told, we would rather not know. Our pride, ego, or shame can become powerful deterrents.

A while back, I made the mistake of watching an online video featuring a kind stranger rescuing and rehabilitating an abandoned dog. My social-media feeds immediately filled with dogs and cats. This is ironic because I own neither. I have an aquarium.

I am discovering that fish do not particularly enjoy being petted.

Yet something in those rescue videos is worth pondering.

When a gentle person finds an abandoned dog on the road or in a shelter, the animal is often paralyzed. She attempts to melt into the corner, immovable, hoping not to be seen. She glances around furtively and becomes anxious whenever someone approaches.

A person trained to rehabilitate these dogs often does something extraordinary: they sit down nearby and do almost nothing for a very long time. They may speak softly and gently, even when the dog refuses to be touched.

This paralyzed condition may continue for weeks. The trainer does the same thing day after day. He sits beside the dog simply to be with her. Then, perhaps one day, the dog accepts food from his hand. Later, she allows a brief touch or a pat on the head.

Ever so slowly, the dog begins to experience an inner safety that permits greater vulnerability. She plays, frolics, allows herself to be held, and eventually rests comfortably with a new owner or races around a yard with other dogs.

Through the trainer’s patient, kind, consistent, and gentle presence, a rejected, abused, abandoned throwaway becomes free—free to rest, play, enjoy, and experience unconditional love. Free to become her authentic dog self.

Human beings are far more complex than dogs, though watching some of us eat may raise questions. But I think the principle still applies. We move toward freedom in environments where kindness, presence, patience, and consistency slowly teach our hearts that they no longer need to hide.

Safety Is Not the Absence of Pain

I remember reading Dallas Willard’s The Divine Conspiracy and coming across this statement:

“Jesus brings us the assurance that the universe is a perfectly safe place for us to be.”

When I first read it, I confess I was angry.

“How ridiculous,” I thought. “How can anyone in their right mind call this world safe?”

We are taught that if we follow Jesus, our eternal destiny is secure and we will never be separated from God. But that did little to calm my insecure heart in the present. Sure, I will be safe after I am dead, but how can I possibly be safe in the face of betrayal, abandonment, violence, sickness, and the staggering number of factors in life over which I have no control?

Good grief, just turn on the news, Dr. Willard.

I have now spent years wrestling with his statement. I have found no theological reason to reject it, so I have come around to intellectually agreeing with him.

My heart, however, continues to lag.

Perhaps safety does not mean what we normally assume it means. It cannot mean the absence of pain, because Jesus Himself was hated, threatened, falsely accused, convicted, tortured, and killed. If following Jesus is an apprenticeship in becoming more like Him, a completely protected and painless life does not appear to be part of the arrangement.

Safety must be something deeper than controlling outcomes.

Like Riding a Bike

The inward journey is not always pleasant. We may discover many beautiful things, but we will also uncover hidden motives, agendas, vices, loathings, selfishness, fear, and shame.

Imagine a small boy learning to ride a bicycle without training wheels. His father tells him it is time to try riding on his own.

“You want me to do what?” the boy cries.

He is unlikely to take the risk if he is abandoned in the driveway with no support. But if his father promises to keep one hand on the back of the bike, run beside him, and not release him until he is ready, the boy may cautiously agree.

His heart knows, feels, and experiences his father’s protection.

It is not enough to agree intellectually that we are safe. Our hearts must gradually experience the reality of being held within constant care.

Yet when we suffer tragedy, loneliness, sickness, rejection, or betrayal, our hearts often conclude that the last thing we are is safe. We then transpose that insecurity onto our relationship with God.

Our typical response to a broken heart is control. Understandably, we do not want to suffer again, so we begin orchestrating our environments and circumstances. We hoard possessions, stay in jobs we hate because the income is predictable, withdraw from intimate relationships, locate more security in our doctrine than in its Author, or manipulate the people around us into providing the reassurance we cannot find within ourselves.

Our hearts attempt to manufacture a world in which no one can hurt us again.

It is a fruitless effort, though it may make us feel better for a while.

Can I Get a Withness?

Safety does not mean the absence of trial, pain, or heartbreak. It is the embodied assurance of withness.

Yes, withness is a real word. It means “the state or fact of being close to or connected with someone or something.”

God’s promise to be with us is woven through Scripture and creation. It is written into the name Immanuel. Though it is often the forgotten clause in the Great Commission, the last thing Matthew records Jesus saying is His promise to remain with us.

This embodied sense of safety is not about getting our way or living a life free from pain. It is resting in the reality that our Creator is with us. He rejoices with us and celebrates with us. His heart breaks when ours does. When we suffer, He suffers. He is always close by.

In our part of the world, we have lost much of this sense of withness and genuine community. Mother Teresa once described loneliness as an epidemic. Perhaps it has become our new pandemic.

We struggle to experience the peacefulness of “God with us” partly because our hearts have not enjoyed many long-term, intimate, secure relationships. There is a high cost to neighborhood fences, smartphones, transient lifestyles, working from home, and trying to keep five or ten different communities spinning at once.

Even when we attend church, we may spend only a few hours each week with the people there, and most of that time occurs during a non-interactive service. That is not exactly a recipe for developing long-term, vulnerable, trusted relationships.

This is why the inward journey generally requires people who can help us notice what we cannot see. We need friends, counselors, spiritual directors, pastors, or intentionally formative communities that can remain present when the story becomes painful and remind us that confusion or struggle does not diminish our value.

God’s Kindness Makes Honesty Possible

Kindness may sound too soft for serious spiritual formation, but it is difficult to imagine a more necessary environment for honest self-knowledge.

If we expect condemnation, we hide. If we anticipate shame, we defend ourselves. If weakness might cost us love or belonging, we perform. Fear may produce compliance, but it rarely produces deep honesty.

Kindness creates room for the truth.

A kind person does not deny harmful behavior, minimize pain, or pretend that every desire is good. They simply refuse to separate truth from love. They are interested in understanding before correcting and in another person’s good rather than their own need to appear wise or powerful.

God’s kindness has the same effect. When we experience Him as patient, attentive, and committed to our good, we become less afraid of what we may discover. We can acknowledge resentment, envy, fear, shame, control, or disappointment because those realities do not threaten His love.

Kindness does not make the journey shallow.

It makes depth possible.

Experiencing God’s Withness

If we desire to explore our hidden ideas and desires but struggle to experience the safety God promises, what are we supposed to do? Should we remain on the surface and leave the depth and riches we are promised for another day?

As I have contemplated this question, it seems that God is infinitely creative in His efforts to woo us into experiencing Him. He continually offers this bedrock sense of security, this withness that can transcend pain and suffering.

For me, meditating on the phrase, “God not only loves you; He likes you,” strengthens my courage for the inward journey. At one point, our Greenhouse practiced sitting still for five minutes each day and imagining God—Father, Son, or Spirit—embracing us and delighting in us.

For others, it is hearing God whisper in the wind. My wife experiences Him in the crashing waves at the beach. She also encounters Him while tending the extraordinary number of plants in our house, sensing His pleasure as she stewards His creation.

The more traditional ways of experiencing God’s presence remain wonderful: Scripture, corporate worship, liturgy, singing, prayer, communion, silence, and solitude. But I found that I had unconsciously limited my experiences of God to those practices.

He is not so limited.

God may allow us to experience His patience through a friend who listens to the same story more than once. We may experience His delight through someone who enjoys us without needing anything from us. We may encounter His safety through a community that does not shame our questions or rush us toward a predetermined answer.

His withness often arrives through the presence of other people.

Curiosity Instead of Condemnation

Many of us have learned to respond to our inner lives with immediate judgment.

We notice anxiety and tell ourselves to trust God. We feel anger and accuse ourselves of being unloving. We recognize envy and confess it before considering what desire it may reveal. We become aware of destructive behavior and move directly into correction.

There may eventually be a need for confession, changed behavior, boundaries, or repair. But condemnation often prevents us from understanding what is happening.

Curiosity asks different questions.

Why did that interaction affect me so strongly? What was I afraid would happen? What did I want from that person? Why does rest make me uncomfortable? What does this behavior provide, even temporarily? What old story does this moment resemble? What am I trying to protect?

These questions do not excuse sin or remove responsibility. They help reveal the ideas and desires beneath our behavior so transformation can reach the roots.

We can begin by noticing one recurring pattern that feels disproportionate, confusing, or difficult to change. Perhaps criticism ruins our day. Rest produces guilt. Conflict awakens panic. We feel responsible for everyone else’s emotions. Prayer becomes difficult after failure. We continually seek approval from people who cannot give us security.

Instead of immediately correcting the pattern, we can bring it into conversation with Jesus and pay attention to what happens in our thoughts, emotions, bodies, behaviors, relationships, words, time, and money.

The first task is awareness, not instant repair.

Our Stories May Need to Be Told More Than Once

As we become curious, our stories often begin to surface.

We may uncover ways we were neglected, misunderstood, controlled, betrayed, or harmed. We may begin connecting old experiences with present fears and behaviors. This can awaken anger toward family members, church leaders, institutions, ourselves, or God.

These emotions do not necessarily mean the journey has gone wrong. They may indicate that we are becoming honest about experiences we previously minimized.

But anger and grief need safe places to be held. We often need to tell and retell our stories while someone patient listens for themes, emotions, assumptions, and moments we have overlooked.

Healing does not require us to excuse harm, pretend the past was acceptable, or force forgiveness according to someone else’s timetable. It invites us to tell the truth about what happened while allowing Jesus and trusted people to help us carry what the truth uncovers.

The goal is not to remain trapped in the past. It is to understand how the past continues living within the present so we can become increasingly free.

Moving at the Pace of Love

Modern life trains us to expect quick solutions. We want the insight, book, practice, prayer, or breakthrough that will finally resolve what has troubled us for years.

The heart rarely works that way.

Ideas and desires formed through decades of relationships and experiences may require considerable time to become visible and be reformed. We may understand something intellectually long before we experience it as true. We may revisit the same story or pattern many times and discover something new each time.

This does not mean nothing is changing.

Transformation often occurs quietly. We recognize a reaction sooner. We recover more quickly. We become less cruel toward ourselves. We tell the truth without collapsing into shame. We allow someone to remain close when we would once have withdrawn.

The inward journey moves at the pace of trust, and trust often moves at the pace of love.

The God Who Goes With Us

The inward journey can sound like a project we undertake to find God somewhere deep within ourselves. But Jesus is not waiting at the end of the journey.

He is present at the beginning.

He walks with us into every hidden room, old story, confusing desire, and painful realization. He is already active in the questions, relationships, memories, and moments that awaken our curiosity.

We are not searching for a God who has disappeared. We are becoming more aware of the God who is here.

His invitation is not to descend into the heart alone, armed with determination and self-analysis. It is to go with Him, accompanied when possible by people whose patience, kindness, and presence make His withness more tangible.

The inward journey with God is not safe because we control what we will discover.

It is safe because He does not abandon us when we discover it.

Explore Further

Why Self-Knowledge Is Essential to Christian Discipleship

How Hidden Ideas About God Shape Your Spiritual Life

Sharing Our Stories: How Storytelling Helps Us Heal

The Kind of Christian Community Our Hearts Actually Need