By Jeffrey Cohen | Sports Writer
Over winter break, I read the book “Interior Freedom” by Jacques Philippe, a French Catholic priest. It touched on multiple topics geared toward learning how to live a truly free life as a Christian. It ranged from more spiritual things, such as understanding the roles of faith, hope and charity, to more personal things like learning to live in the present moment.
I sometimes struggle to implement what I read in the Bible into my own life, as do plenty of other Christians. There are many times when the content I read becomes purely a theological concept or a basic idea about the faith. If Christians end there, then they could miss some beneficial guidance in a world with many conflicting ideas on what it means to live.
I will read Scripture and not know the answer to the question, “What does this look like in my life?” That is where I look to the wisdom and insight of others who have spent their time finding ways to answer that question.
These spiritual books, like “Interior Freedom,” can be vital to the growth of Christians. They can be especially helpful to those who are figuring out their faith for themselves for the first time.
Many Christian college students, especially at faith-based universities like Baylor, went to church growing up or attended Christian schools purely because it was their parents’ decision. As they enter their formative years in college, they are tasked with deciding whether to continue practicing the faith instilled in them or forge new beliefs.
A 2023-24 Pew Research study stated that 74% of Americans who said they were raised religiously still identified with their childhood religion.
While many religious people in the U.S. retain their parents’ faith, the process of becoming independent from their parents can be confusing with the array of religions, denominations and beliefs about the human person in the world. Guidance from the wiser and more spiritually sound can be a valuable step for young people.
One example in “Interior Freedom” is the topic of how we approach our actions and our attitude toward them.
“The most important and most fruitful acts of our freedom are not those by which we transform the outside world,” Philippe writes. “[But] those by which we change our inner attitude in light of the faith that God can bring good out of everything without exception.”
Philippe writes that it is not the actions themselves that help us live freely. It is the belief that God can make something good out of them that shows us that we can live without fear of failing or not making every “right” decision.
It is excerpts and passages like that that help put spiritual concepts into more digestible and applicable ways.
These spiritual books are there to help others in their walk of faith. It would be ill-advised not to try to absorb some of that valuable wisdom and guidance.
