Most of us have seen it — in the people we serve, and in ourselves. Someone is doing all the right things. Reading Scripture. Praying. Practicing the spiritual disciplines. And yet the deep change they long for stays just out of reach. Theologian Simeon Zahl calls this “the problem of nontransformation”: the uncomfortable reality that Christian practices don’t automatically produce Christlike people.¹
I felt the weight of this again recently at a spiritual formation conference, working through nine papers from theologians, philosophers, and psychologists. They came at the question from different fields and different centuries of scholarship — and kept landing in the same place. Doing the practices, by itself, isn’t enough. So why do sincere, faithful people stay stuck? And what actually transforms us?
When we feel stuck, most of us use one of three strategies. We try harder, gritting our teeth toward growth. We chase the next experience — the next conference or worship high. Or we seek knowledge, hoping our hearts will catch up to our heads. None of these is bad. But each is, at root, an attempt to protect ourselves from pain—to control rather than connect. And when a practice is severed from its true purpose, communion with God, it slowly loses its power to form us.
We Are Loved Into Loving — The Science Behind Spiritual Transformation
Here is the heart of it: we are loved into loving. “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Transformation is not something we achieve through our own willpower; it is something we receive — through secure relationship with God and with the people who carry his love to us.
Implicit vs. Explicit Knowledge: Why the Gap Between Head and Heart Persists
This is where the science is clarifying, and where it should encourage every counselor, pastor and coach. We know in two different ways. There is explicit knowledge — what we can put into words, our theology, what we believe is true. And beneath it lies implicit, relational knowing — the gut-level sense of how relationships work, laid down long before we had words for it. Our felt sense of God lives in that deeper layer. This is why a client can know God loves them and still feel, deep down, that they must earn their keep. If you’re looking to go deeper on this topic, the AACC’s Biblical Counseling & Spiritual Formation Division brings together practitioners working exactly at this intersection.
What Actually Changes Us: Loving Contrast Experiences in Counseling
That gap between what we know and what we feel does not close with more information. It closes through new relational experiences — what I call loving contrast experiences: being met with love at the very moment we expected to be judged or dismissed. This is precisely the kind of corrective experience that can unfold in good counseling, coaching and discipleship. When a client risks bringing shame into the room and is met with steady grace, something in their implicit world begins to update. Their felt sense of God — and of themselves — starts to shift.
That is why, across those nine papers, two practices kept rising to the top — and they were the two most relational. The practice Augustine prized above the others wasn’t solitude or study. It was friendship, which involves benevolence and mutuality.² Without friendship, our other practices struggle to take root. The second is contemplation — not analysis or technique, but slow, loving attention to Christ, simply receiving his love.
What This Means for Counselors, Coaches, and Pastors
A few shifts follow for those of us who walk with others. We can help a client or mentee change the question from “What practice should I add?” to “Where am I trying to control, rather than connect?” We can recognize that the counseling relationship itself can become a secure base — a place where loving contrast experiences happen and the felt sense of God is quietly rewired. And we can encourage the most relational practices — one honest friendship, a few unhurried minutes simply being with Christ — over an ever-longer list of disciplines. For counselors looking to grow in these areas, our webinars and continuing education offer ongoing training grounded in exactly this kind of clinical and spiritual integration.
Spiritual practices still matter. But we hold them differently — not as levers of control, but as acts of surrender, with one aim: to know Christ more deeply. That posture is the only thing I have ever seen truly change a person for good. We do not will ourselves into becoming more loving people. We are loved into it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why don’t spiritual practices automatically produce transformation?
Because change doesn’t happen through willpower or information alone. It requires new relational experiences — particularly what Dr. Todd Hall calls ‘loving contrast experiences,’ moments where we are met with grace instead of the judgment we expected. These encounters update the implicit, felt sense of self and God in ways that explicit knowledge alone cannot.
What is the most important spiritual practice for real transformation?
Research and historical theology both point to relational practices. Augustine prioritized friendship above all other disciplines. Paired with contemplative attention to Christ — simply receiving his love rather than analyzing or achieving — these two provide the relational grounding that makes other disciplines formative rather than merely habitual.
What is the difference between explicit and implicit knowledge in spiritual formation?
Explicit knowledge is what we can articulate — our theology, our beliefs about God’s love. Implicit relational knowledge is the gut-level felt sense of how relationships work, developed long before we had words for it. A person can know theologically that God loves them and yet feel deep down that they must earn his acceptance. That gap doesn’t close with more doctrine; it closes through new relational experiences that update the implicit world.
Todd W. Hall, Ph.D. is Professor of Psychology at Biola University’s Rosemead School of Psychology, a Faculty Affiliate in the Harvard Human Flourishing Program, and a licensed psychologist. He is the author of numerous books, including Relational Spirituality and The Connected Life. Dr. Hall is the founder of the Relational Spirituality Academy, which trains Christian leaders in the Relational Spirituality model of spiritual formation and coaching. He is also the founder of SpiritualMetrics.co, which offers state-of-the-art assessments to help individuals and organizations flourish. Become an AACC member to access webinars, continuing education, and a community of Christian mental health professionals.
¹ Zahl, S. (2020). “The Holy Spirit and Christian Experience.” Oxford: Oxford University Press.
² Wadell, P.J. (1989). “Friendship and the Moral Life.” Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press.