The Two Pathways in Spiritual Formation: The Journey of the Privileged and the Marginalized
Introduction: Listening for How Grace Moves
In my years of walking with people in spiritual direction and formation settings, I have sat with those whose lives are marked by social advantage and others whose lives have been shaped by marginalization. These categories are never neat. Many people carry both privilege and pain in different areas of their story. Yet over time, a pattern began to emerge in what I was witnessing.
I noticed that people did not struggle with God in the same way.
Those who came from positions of stability, education, financial security, or social influence often wrestled with control, achievement, and the need to hold life together. Others, whose lives had been marked by exclusion, poverty, racism, trauma, or invisibility, struggled not with control but with shame, powerlessness, and questions of worth.
As I listened in prayer with these directees, I began to see that grace was not moving in the same direction for everyone. Some were being invited to let go. Others were being invited to stand up. Some needed to surrender power; others needed to reclaim dignity.
The gospel was meeting each of them precisely where their bondage lay.
When Jesus says, “Deny yourself,” that invitation sounds different to someone who has always had access and agency than to someone who has survived by self-erasure. Likewise, the proclamation of belovedness lands differently for someone accustomed to affirmation than for someone shaped by rejection or invisibility.
Spiritual formation is the lifelong process of being conformed to the image of Christ for the sake of others. The destination—union with God—is shared. The pathways, however, are not identical. As spiritual directors, discernment requires that we attend carefully to how grace may be moving in different, even opposite, directions in the lives of those we accompany.
Broadly speaking:
For the privileged, grace often invites a downward movement into surrender, humility, and solidarity.
For the marginalized, grace often invites an upward movement into dignity, voice, and belovedness.
Both movements are holy. Both lead toward deeper union with God. Both meet at the cross.
1. The Pathway of the Privileged: From Self-Sufficiency to Surrender
Those formed in contexts of privilege—through wealth, education, race, stability, or influence—often carry a deep, sometimes unconscious trust in their own capacity to manage life. In direction, I have often seen how exhausting this hidden burden can be. Beneath competence and success, there is frequently anxiety, pressure, and fear of losing control.
Their primary spiritual obstacle is not weakness, but self-sufficiency.
Core Distortion: Self-Sufficiency
Privilege can nurture the illusion that life is secured through competence, discipline, or achievement. This posture subtly resists dependence on God. The self becomes organized around performance, possession, and reputation rather than rootedness in divine love.
In direction, this may show up as:
Difficulty with silence or stillness
Anxiety when outcomes are uncertain
Spiritual practices subtly used for self-improvement rather than surrender
Movement of Grace: Descent
For the privileged directee, grace often takes the form of descent:
From control to trust
From self-reliance to dependence
From comfort to compassionate presence with suffering
This mirrors Christ’s self-emptying (Philippians 2). The invitation is not toward shame, but toward kenosis—a relinquishing that creates space for God and for others.
Fruit of Formation: Solidarity
As control loosens, compassion deepens. I have watched directees become more present to suffering—not rushing to fix, but willing to remain. Freed from the need to secure themselves, they grow in genuine solidarity. Humility becomes the doorway into love.
2. The Pathway of the Marginalized: From Shame to Belovedness
Those shaped by marginalization—through poverty, racism, exclusion, gender inequity, or trauma—often come with a different spiritual wound. In direction, their stories frequently carry grief, resilience, and a deep question: Do I truly matter?
Their struggle is not overcontrol, but diminished agency and internalized shame.
Core Distortion: Invisibility and Unworthiness
Many marginalized directees carry an internalized narrative: I am not seen. I am not enough. I do not matter. This shapes their image of God and their capacity to receive love.
In direction, this may appear as:
Hesitancy to take up space
Difficulty trusting that God delights in them
A spirituality marked more by survival than freedom
Movement of Grace: Ascent
For the marginalized directee, grace often moves upward:
From shame to belovedness
From silence to voice
From passivity to agency
I have witnessed the quiet power of this rising—when someone dares to believe, often for the first time, that they are God’s beloved. Tears come. Posture changes. Prayer shifts from pleading for worth to resting in it.
This is the biblical pattern of reversal: the lowly lifted, the excluded restored, the unseen called by name.
Fruit of Formation: Joy and Prophetic Clarity
As belovedness takes root, joy often emerges—not shallow optimism, but deep gladness in being seen and known by God. From this place, many marginalized persons become prophetic witnesses, naming injustice and embodying hope born from lived suffering.
