In a modern world full of noise, constant distractions, and an ever-decreasing lack of intellectual depth, how are we as believers to respond to such assaults on our mind and spirit? For many, this may seem to be a modern issue, but as it turns out, the Bible offers many answers for our seemingly modern problems.
Ancient Disciplines for A Modern World
The spritual disciplines are simply a handy term to explain how the Bible says we are to live. Many believers from times past wrote about these disciplines at length. For many people, returning to the roots of our faith may be the very answer needed for understanding where we have lost our way.
Over the past several years, I’ve read some good material on these disciplines, most of it very helpful, others not so much. The key to remember is this: disciplines are all about shaping and molding our minds into what we know we should be.
The disciplines simply mean encapsulating the internal and external aspects of the spiritual life. From reading the Bible, meditation, prayer, and service, everything is supposed to exist in a cohesive whole.
Spritual Disciplines and Grace
The Christian life is never meant to be one of ease, necessarily. I’m preaching to myself as much as you. We forget so often that as believers, we are called to a higher way of life. I forget this sometimes. Like an athlete disciplines their bodies for a match, so I must discipline my spirit to become the man that God expects me to be. This being said, I still believe that it is equally important to remember the need for grace in our lives. Discipline is important for growth. As important as it is to be disciplined, so is it important to be.
“A farmer is helpless to grow grain; all he can do is provide the right conditions for the growing of grain. He cultivates the ground, he plants the seed, he waters the plants, and then the natural forces of the earth take over and up comes the grain…This is the way it is with the Spiritual Disciplines – they are a way of sowing to the Spirit… By themselves the Spiritual Disciplines can do nothing; they can only get us to the place where something can be done.” – Richard Foster
As I go through my day and all of the ordinary, mundane things, it helps to remember that I am not called to a life of aesthetic monasticism. It is very possible to serve God in the day-to-day details. By internalizing the Bible, by adopting a lifestyle of prayer, and by allowing this to inform my life through service, then living a life fueled by faith becomes much more applicable.
I’ll be clear; I believe that it is important to remember how much grace is infused in our lives as believers. I certainly do not believe we are out to earn our way into heaven. So often, any talk of discipline quickly spirals into discussions of earning our salvation somehow. This utterly misses the entire point. The call to every believer is not to merely be forgiven and then wait for heaven. It is a call to a higher way of living. It is a way for us to recover what we originally lost way back in the Garden of Eden.
Here’s something worth thinking about: before sin, before the Fall, what were we like? Seriously, before our hearts and minds were corrupted, what were we like? Based on the life of Jesus, and everything He called us to be like, I believe that we were kinder. I believe we laughed more. That we felt more joy. More peace. The call of the believer is for us to return to our original state.
Anyone who has seen recent events in the news and seen the instability, the hatred, the violence, we all recognize that something is terribly wrong. We know that deep down there is something terribly wrong and that something desperately needs to be resolved. This is where the disciplines come in.
