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Balancing the Mortal and Spiritual

Professor Michelle James has been developing her relationship with Christ for decades—and it all started with a nun’s simple testimony.

Individuals can take part in two kinds of transformations: the first, a surface-level change, like a haircut or a new style, and the second, a spiritual or fundamental change that alters one’s being. In high school, Professor Michelle James (German) was challenged to experience that second type of change, and ever since, she has been in constant pursuit of a deeper spiritual conversion anchoring her to Christ. In her 2024 book Spiritual Transformation, James explains how balancing mortal and spiritual perceptions will lead to this type of long-lasting transformation and a steadfast relationship with Christ.

A Sneak Peek at Her Book

For James, her spiritual transformation kickstarted in high school during a conversation with Sister Columba, a nun in her hometown. While they spoke, Sister Columba humbly and emotionally testified of her devotion to Christ and her personal conviction of His power. Though a regular churchgoer, James noticed a stark contrast between her friend’s simple testimony and her own. In that moment, James committed to developing a deeper and stronger relationship with Jesus Christ, and her journey to true conversion inspired Spiritual Transformation.

Headshot of Professor Michelle James.
Photo by Brynli Myers

James centers her book on the two great commandments outlined in Matthew 22:36–40, which are “love the Lord thy God” and “love thy neighbor as thyself.” She explains, “These are the three significant relationships: your relationship to God, your relationship to yourself, and your relationship to others. All three of those have to be in balance, so that’s the guiding principle [to spiritual transformation].” To improve these relationships, James discusses the importance of balancing our mortal and spiritual views of the world around us. This means learning to rely and lean on the Lord first, not on our temporal knowledge.

For years after speaking with Sister Columba, James pored over Christian books, religious texts, and self-help books, trying to find what she needed to strengthen her personal relationship with Christ. Though she learned a great deal in this time, her biggest takeaway was that she had the knowledge she needed all along—she was just looking at it from the mortal perspective, not the spiritual. She explains that while people and experiences may let you down, Christ never will. By making Him our center, we will be grounded despite all of life’s uncertainties. In other words, James says, “The point of learning to relate to God is allowing Him to lead you and guide your spirit, so that even in the midst of all the mortal demands, you can have a very strong spiritual relationship.”

Becoming Transformed through Christ

Though important, making Christ the center proves no easy task as it requires a consistent focus on the spiritual, especially while gaining secular knowledge and experience. James says that “it takes incredible spiritual discipline to be focusing first on the spiritual and letting that be the organizing principle for everything else in life.” She explains that allowing a spiritual perspective to take priority in life will ultimately transform you by “bringing you to that point where the thing that matters most is what makes you most like Christ.”

James argues that “the end result of spiritual transformation is closeness with Christ and being transformed to be like Him.” She says that through this process, you learn to “not just let your light so shine. You are that light, reflecting His light to others around you. It becomes your natural way of being because you’ve given yourself to the Lord.”

Learn more about Professor James’s spiritual transformation in her 2016 BYU devotional.