Vital signs: what reveals your true spiritual health?

Mark Pugh explores how love, joy and peace—not performance—are the true markers of a thriving spiritual life.

In medicine, the path to diagnosis is clear: elevated temperature signals infection, while rising blood pressure may indicate stress. These measurable vital signs guide healthcare professionals toward effective treatment. But what about our spiritual wellbeing? How do we recognise when our inner life is thriving ‒ or failing?

Unlike physical health, spiritual vitality doesn’t reveal itself through laboratory tests or digital readouts. Its indicators are subtler yet equally revealing to those who know what they’re looking for.

Over many years I’ve watched individuals navigate their spiritual journeys through both calm waters and violent storms. What stands out is not how people perform when everything goes right, but rather what emerges when life squeezes them hardest.

Consider an orange: when pressed, it reliably yields orange juice ‒ nothing else. Similarly, when followers of Jesus face pressure, their response reveals their true spiritual condition. No amount of external religious performance can mask internal spiritual reality.

Many assume spiritual health is measured by religious achievements: Scripture memorised, perfect attendance records, or generous financial contributions. These metrics, while potentially meaningful, can sometimes mask a troubling reality.

They may reflect mere religious habit rather than authentic spiritual health. Jesus himself encountered this disconnect. The religious leaders of his day excelled at observable piety, they knew sacred texts by heart, maintained flawless attendance at the temple and made conspicuous donations. Yet Jesus challenged them forcefully, suggesting that, despite their impressive spiritual résumés, something essential was absent.

And what was missing? The very elements that can’t be faked when life applies pressure – love that extends beyond convenience, joy that persists through hardship, and peace that remains steady amid chaos.

These qualities ‒ love, joy and peace ‒ represent the true vital signs of spiritual health. They can’t be manufactured or performed; they either flow naturally from a spiritually healthy life or remain noticeably absent when we’re spiritually compromised.

The most reliable spiritual thermometer doesn’t measure religious performance but rather the presence of these transformative qualities. When challenges arrive and pressure mounts, they reveal whether our spiritual practice has truly changed us from within or merely coated our exterior with a religious veneer that washes away at the first sign of trouble.

This article first appeared in Direction Magazine. For further details, please click here.