From the history and purpose of Lent, we now turn to understanding some of the spiritual practices we will employ in the preparation of our hearts. Jesus himself not only taught us about them but also demonstrated their practice in His own life. From the time of St. Paul penning his letters of the New Testament, Christians have been writing about spiritual practices. A young monk in the sixth century authored one of the earliest strict codes for spiritual practices, The Rule of Saint Benedict, which is still followed by Benedictine monks. In the 15th century
Brother Lawrence would bring us The Practice of the Presence of God; in the 16th William Law would bring us A Spiritual Call to a Devout and Holy Life; and in the 17th Oswald Chambers would write devotionals like My Upmost for His Highest. The common goal of these countless authors was to encourage and instruct people to deepen their relationship with God. This simple theme has generated enough books to fill rows of library shelves and overwhelm any student. Rather than explore them all, we will use Richard Foster’s A Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth as a framework for understanding the classic spiritual disciplines.
He identifies twelve spiritual disciplines and divides them into three categories: inward disciplines, outward disciplines and corporate disciplines. The inward include meditation, prayer, fasting and study. The outward include simplicity, solitude, submission and service. The corporate include confession, worship, guidance and celebration. We will look at each of these very briefly to develop enough understanding to focus on one each day in our Lenten devotional journey. We begin with the corporate, follow with the outward, and conclude with the inward which will have the greatest impact on our journey.
Corporate Spiritual Disciplines:
- Confession
You may have heard it said that the Church is a hospital for sinners rather than a haven for saints. The acceptance of this statement is the very truth upon which the discipline of confession is founded. We are all sinners who need forgiveness for our sins. When we acknowledge this reality to Christ, we receive forgiveness and reconciliation to God, but we never cease to be sinners. The continued practice of confession releases God’s healing power as sanctifying grace has its way with us. Confession, both individual and corporate, is the foundation of the spiritual disciplines as it provides the constant reminder that we ALL are in need of God’s redeeming grace.
- Worship
Foster defines this discipline well when he states, “Worship is the human response to the divine initiative” (pg. 158). God has acted by pouring out his mercy, grace and love upon all of us. We cannot help but respond in gratitude. That is worship. We gather corporately to focus our praise on the divine object of our worship, the Triune God. It is a regular reminder that “it is never about us.” While worship also has an individual component to it, corporate worship is the true discipline because there are times when we are so beaten down by life that we cannot worship by our own initiative. It is in times such as these that the body of Christ carries us to the throne of God to experience His love and grace. Their worship sustains us until we can bring our own offering of praise. The discipline of worship is also the place that we collectively hear the call of God to go and transform the world with His love. In worship, the Holy Spirit heals our brokenness then empowers us to go forth and change the world.
- Guidance
There are in essence two types of guidance to which this discipline refers. The first is the corporate guidance of the Holy Spirit when a part of the Body of Christ gathers seeking God’s will for their church through prayer and fasting. This is not a two line prayer at the beginning of a meeting followed by a majority vote which is deemed to be the will of God. We are describing the body earnestly seeking and expecting guidance from the Holy Spirit as to the will of God. The second type of guidance is that of a spiritual director. Wesley would have called this Christian conferencing, when we seek the counsel of another mature Christian to help us verify the voice of God in our own lives. The discipline of Guidance reflects our dependence upon the Holy Spirit for leadership and direction and upon the body of Christ to verify His voice.
- Celebration
This is a discipline that has been for the most part lost in mainline Caucasian churches. We have become so bogged down in acts of repentance and the study of Scriptures that we have often forgotten the pure, unmitigated joy of a relationship with Christ. We have been freed from burdens, oppression and captivity. That is reason to dance and shout in exuberant celebration! To understand this discipline try to capture this mental picture. An African-American preacher proclaiming, “We can cast our burdens upon Jesus,” as the organ player hits a jazz lick and the congregation shouts “Hallelujah!” As the preacher continues to proclaim the greatness of God and the organist increases the tempo, the congregation raises its energy to a level of jubilant celebration that renews and refreshes the soul. Celebration is the discipline that restores our joy through singing, dancing, laughing, shouting and simply losing ourselves in our praise of the mighty works of God in our lives.
Outward Spiritual Disciplines:
- Simplicity
America has built an entire industry around the retention of stuff we no longer use. In 2014 there were over 48,500 self-storage facilities in the United States. We are so caught up in the worldly value of needing more that we pay for a place to store all that we have but do not need. We write a monthly check to the facility basically for the privilege of saying that we own it. The discipline of simplicity is in essence getting rid of our rental storage units. It begins with an internal attitude of shedding our desire for power, prestige, and status while acquiring a profound trust in God to meet all of our needs. This leads to an outward practice of simplifying our lives by shedding our possessions, making our resources available to those in need, and living life rooted in basic needs rather than competitive wants. To live simply, is to live free. This does not mean living a life of poverty. The discipline of simplicity leads to a life free from the trappings of the world’s consumer culture.
- Solitude
The discipline of solitude is not about being alone or being lonely. It begins with a contented state of mind. We don’t require the company of others because we are comfortable with who we are. This state of mind creates the opportunity for us to be more attuned to hearing the voice of God. In the same way Elijah heard the still small whisper in the wind, we can hear the divine words spoken in the depth of our souls. It is state of mind that manifests itself outwardly when we choose to have time alone, silently listening for the voice of God. It can come in the car driving to work with the radio and cell phone turned off; or early in the morning when we rise before everyone else to spend a few quiet moments with God attentive to His guidance for our day; or right before we lay down to sleep when the house is quiet and we listen for those reassuring words, “You are my beloved child, I will never leave you.” Hearing His still small voice comforts us and reminds us that we are more than just what we see in the mirror. The discipline of solitude is time apart from the world intentionally listening for the voice of God. In those moments spent in the presence of God we are filled with the grace we need to live in a manner that points others to the glory of God.
- Submission
Most children can be counted on to challenge their parents’ patience as they ask for more stuff, different activities and varieties of food choices. Pushed to their limits some parents surrender to their children’s demands in what they deem an act of “unconditional love.” Unfortunately, what the child was really seeking was a boundary. “No” defines the limit that they know they cannot go beyond. As strange as it may sound, the boundaries provide freedom, because they know within their limits is safety, protection and love. The children can then embrace the freedom of trusting in the will of the ones who love them. That is a succinct description of the spiritual discipline of submission. We submit ourselves to the limits that God has set for our lives because within those we find the freedom to trust our Loving Father and the peace, safety and protection of His defined boundaries. It is embodied in the words of Christ, “Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Me.” Submission is putting our own desires secondary to God’s will for our lives and in doing so discovering that God’s will for our lives will bring us greater happiness and freedom than we could ever have imagined.
- Service
Throughout His ministry, Jesus provoked His followers to serve. His most challenging teaching of service is found in His words, “Whoever desires to be greatest in the kingdom, must be slave of all.” Is it okay to want to be great? I thought being a slave was a bad thing? We get focused on the trees of greatest and slave and miss the forest that is the greatest truth of the Kingdom. There can only be one greatest in the Kingdom thus only one slave of all. That one can never be any of us, because it will always be Jesus Christ. He alone was the slave of all that died on the cross to atone for our sins. He alone was raised from the dead to be the greatest in the Kingdom. This is Jesus’ greatest act of service, greater than His healings, greater than His foot washing, even greater than His feeding of the five thousand. With this act, Jesus paved a path of service for each of us who choose to follow Him. The importance of this discipline lies in the fact that it exists in the domain of the ordinary. We live the bulk of our lives between our moments of quiet solitude and corporate worship. This space between is where we encounter people in need. It is where we live out our Christian walk by serving them. In meeting the needs of others we are freed from concerns over our own needs, but an even greater benefit is recognizing our own need to humbly allow others to serve us. When we all have an attitude of service, there is neither first nor last.
Inward Spiritual Disciplines:
- Meditation
When we hear the word meditation, many of us begin to think of somebody doing yoga, sitting cross legged and chanting “ummmmm.” While that is a form of meditation, it is far from the Christian concept of meditation. Eastern religions’ meditation involves a person completely emptying themselves of both the external and internal things of this world. Simply put, Christian meditation is focusing ourselves enough to hear the voice of God. Jesus models this for us when he continually takes His time apart in the Gospels. He goes away from the busyness, crowds and disciples to commune with the Father. That is Christian meditation. Spending time with the Father to hear His voice and deepen our relationship with Him. Rather than separating us from something, Christian meditation is about connecting us with God. The ancients called this discipline “contemplation,” and those who practiced were known as “contemplatives” but we do not have to be contemplatives to mediate. Anyone can contemplate on God the Creator, God the Redeemer and God the Sustainer; Father, Son and Holy Spirit. When we do, we are meditating. It can be as traditional as reading a passage of scripture repeatedly allowing the significance of the passage to move from our head to our heart. Focusing on something in the created world like a magnificent star filled sky or a snow covered field while asking oneself, “What does this tell me about the Creator?” is equally a form of meditation. Another form would be to consider events in the world while asking oneself, “How does the crucified Christ feel about this?” The discipline of meditation is taking the time to specifically focus on God with the intentions of growing closer to Him through listening and obeying.
- Prayer
Prayer can be a difficult word to define as it takes many different forms and is practiced in so many different ways. At its simplest, it is “communicating with God; both speaking and listening.” That foundation can be expanded to include praying on behalf of others, intercession; praying to request something, petition; praying to express gratitude, thanksgiving; praying to express the greatness of God, adoration. Examples include the Serenity Prayer, the Prayer of St. Francis, or the Lord’s Prayer. Pray takes many forms, but all of them are communicating with God. Each of those forms have different purposes, but an overall purpose of prayer would have to be transformation. Transformation of self, of situations, of the world. As we draw closer to God in prayer, we cannot help but be transformed. As the world experiences us, it too enters into transformation. The discipline of prayer will change the world if we will simply choose to practice it.
Before you argue that prayer is boring and you just can’t do it, consider this simple model to guide your time of prayer. It is the acronym ACTS. The A stands for adoration where we focus on an attribute of God and praise Him for it. The C is confession where we empty ourselves of the sins burdening our relationship with God. T is thanksgiving, an expression of gratitude for His work in our lives and the world. The acronym concludes with supplication, making requests to God on behalf of ourselves, others and the world. Prayer can be that simple. Four sentences and an, “Amen.” Growing a deeper relationship with God is not dependent on the form of our prayers, but it does require that we pray. The spiritual discipline of prayer implies that we practice it as part of a regular routine rather than spontaneous outburst rooted in life’s situations.
- Fasting
This is perhaps the most overlooked spiritual discipline in the modern church despite the great frequency it is discussed throughout Scripture. We should begin to feel a bit guilty as we realize that it is never a case of “if you fast” in Scripture, it is always “when you fast.” It is the expected companion to the disciplines of prayer and meditation. Christians are supposed to fast. It is the constant reminder that God is and always will be the source of our needs being met. Historically, fasting is related to one of our most basic needs, food. It was always an abstention for a prescribed period of time, but it could either be certain types of food or particular meals.
In feeling the pangs of hunger we are reminded of the plight of the poor who we are called to serve. As we endure, we come to the realization that God is trustworthy to supply all of our needs whether physical or spiritual. Fasting directly combats today’s consumeristic society that demands continual satiation of ever increasing perceived needs. Whether we abstain from the basic need of food or other pleasures in our life, we learn to recognize the difference between real and perceived needs, thereby simplifying the desires of our heart to better align them with the will of God for our lives. I have yet to meet a person that loves to fast, but everyone I have met that has purposefully practiced this expected discipline has grown deeper in their relationship with God.
- Study
The final inward discipline is study. It is deliberate, repetitive, focused time in seeking to understand Scripture, books, experiences, and the world with the goal of deepening our understanding of God to help us better live for His glory. It begins with the study of Scripture to know God and His great love for each of us. The study of books, both Christian and secular, increases our understanding of God and the world. We need to know both so we can relate in a way that most effectively communicates the love and glory of God. Experience will further inform our understanding of how God works in our lives as we find our unified experience in Christ as His body. Jesus taught us to be, “In the world, but not of it,” while being, “wise as serpents but innocent as doves.” Living out those teachings demands understanding, so we study the world. Wisdom comes from God, but knowledge comes from study. Hand in hand, they inform how we live in ways that point others to the glory of God.
No comments:
Post a Comment