I am easily distracted. I’m distracted not only by the things around me, but often by my own plans. I have plans to change my blog into a more interactive website, and while it’s under construction, I’ve been distracted and ready to move on from this current format, leading to a lack of posts in the past month.
So while I’m waiting to start the next phase of my writing, I’ve decided to work on a series on the spiritual disciplines. This is a topic dear to my heart because, frankly, I stink at them. I always assumed I would get better at practicing the disciplines when I was home more, when I had children and the stakes got higher, as I got older and wiser, etc. The problem with this is in the topic – spiritual disciplines. It turns out, being in my 30’s has not made me any more disciplined that I was before. Neither has having children. If anything, my free time has been taken up by more selfish pursuits, like sleeping, or reading totally useless novels, or sleeping.
In Donald Whitney’s book, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, the author states, “I will maintain that the only road to Christian maturity and Godliness passes through the practice of the Spiritual Disciplines.” He further goes on to say, “I’ve seen Christians who are faithful to the church of God, who frequently demonstrate genuine enthusiasm for the things of God, and who dearly love the Word of God, trivialize their effectiveness for the Kingdom of God through lack of discipline. Spiritually they are a mile wide and an inch deep. There are no deep, time-worn channels of communing discipline between them and God. They have dabbled in everything but disciplined themselves in nothing.”
It’s like an arrow to my heart.
I’m not sure where as a culture we got so off track on this topic. Possibly it was to avoid legalism, to not become like the Pharisees in our approach to God, to make sure we weren’t trying to work or earn our way to heaven. Or maybe it was just laziness, a dislike for things that require significant effort, and the realization that the Spiritual Disciplines don’t come easily to anyone. Regardless, while I see the problem in my own life, I can also see it’s broader implications in society at large and the church in particular.
So over the next few weeks I’m going to focus on some of the specific disciplines, such as prayer, bible intake, evangelism, worship, serving, fasting, journaling, silence and solitude, stewardship, submission, and confession. (If that’s not a daunting list, I don’t know what is!). I would be very interested on your thoughts on this topic, as well as possible resources that have assisted you in being more faithful in the disciplines.