Spiritual Patience and Its Role Throughout Spiritual Yearning
Devan Stahl (Baylor University)
Sarah Schnitker (Baylor University)
Anne Jeffrey (Baylor University)
Allison Alford (Baylor University)
Award: $100,000
Start Date: October 1, 2026
End Date: September 20, 2028
Focus: Spiritual seekers often confront silence, absence, delay, or uncertainty in relation to God or some other transcendent reality. This project develops the concept of spiritual patience: the capacity to remain calm yet genuinely engaged when the object of one's spiritual yearning seems hidden, distant, or obscure. The team proposes that this form of patience may enable people to remain open to mystery and continue seeking without demanding premature certainty or abandoning the search.
Approach: The project will address three questions: what spiritual patience is; what moral and intellectual consequences follow from possessing or lacking it; and for whom it may be especially important. The team will examine spiritual patience across Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions, as well as among religious 'nones' and 'dones' and people facing grief, chronic illness, disability, or spiritual crisis. It will also distinguish patience from spiritual sloth, which may appear either as disengaged withdrawal or as restless activity that avoids the demands of spiritual reflection.
Contribution: A transdisciplinary literature review, interviews with international scholars, and a symposium of philosophers, theologians, and psychologists will inform a testable theoretical model. The project will produce peer-reviewed papers and a foundation for later empirical research. Its applied goal is to give clinicians, chaplains, faith leaders, educators, and caregivers a more precise vocabulary for recognizing both healthy perseverance and harmful disengagement during seasons of spiritual uncertainty.
