Ten Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual health
by Donald Whitney
Review by Jay Veverka
2010 is here and with it may come a new list of resolutions or goals that you’ve set. Hopefully this time of goal setting has been preceded by a period of evaluation. With that in mind, I want to begin this year by commending to you Donald Whitney’s Ten Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health. In the same way that Whitney’s Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life (review below) was a huge encouragement and mentor to me in my early Christian walk, Ten Questions is a much needed check-up in the process of growing to maturity in Christ. Measuring growth in Christ can be a difficult task. On one side, we must be careful not to measure our growth in checklists and legalism. On the other side, “The unexamined life is not worth living” as Socrates has said. Regular times of reflection and evaluation can be profitable for us. Whitney’s book asks heart questions, not simply questions of practice. Questions like, “are you more loving?” and “do you yearn for heaven and to be with Jesus?” are not how we might typically evaluate ourselves, and that is what makes this book such a treasure to me. It not only offers ten questions to consider but reminds me of what kinds of questions I need to be asking myself. As you begin 2010, this little book may be worth picking up to help you get at the heart of your walk with Christ.