Paul Graham, an early venture capitalist, on writing: “1. When you write something intended to be read by an important person, go through it and cut every unnecessary word. 2. The reader of anything you publish is an important person.”
The same thing could be said about speaking—except you must pause and think before you speak.
I have often joked, albeit half-seriously, about how we view God as the Great Vending Machine in the Sky. Drop a prayer in the slot, and a solution appears.
My friend, Jon Swanson, wrote recently, “More and more, I try to talk with Jesus about process rather than outcomes. He already knows what I want, anyway. I think he cares most about the journey and how I travel. I suspect a sense of peace happens when I do what I can with what I have – and trust him for the outcome.”
I like the image of Jesus along for the journey. I’ve been leading small grief support groups for the past 18 months or so. As we discuss the varieties of grief experience, we discover this is not a one time event. It’s a journey that includes different stops along the way.
You may have noticed that your spiritual journey has a similar rhythm of starts and detours and stops and insight followed by being lost.
Richard J. Foster and Dallas Willard and the Renovaré movement talk of the with-God life. Or like the subject of the little book The Way of the Pilgrim who tried to live a life of prayer while walking through rural Russia.
Sorry, once I start thinking, I start linking. And now, I must start the day’s journeying.
A popular meme on the internet holds, “You are what you repeatedly do, excellence therefore is not an act but a habit.” Aristotle did not say this. The statement does fit within the scope of his thought. Leadership thinker, John C. Maxwell, restated this thought as, “You will never change your life until you change something you do daily.”
I approached this thought the other day about consistency and again regarding wishing and doing.
This thinking applies to health, fitness, learning, and relationships. Change something that you can practice daily. Then practice. With intention. Daily.
I’ve experienced this fact of life multiple times. It works.
The famous concert pianist played a short chamber concert. A middle-aged woman rushed up to her at the conclusion.
“Oh, how lovely,” she gushed. “I wish I could play like that.”
“No you don’t,” replied the pianist. “If you did, you would find a teacher and practice hours a day.”
You wish you knew the Bible like someone you know.
You can. Pick up a Bible in a translation that suits you and begin reading. With intent. Every day. Think about it. How does this paragraph fit into the theme of the entire “book?” What is the writer trying to say? Does what I read contradict what I’ve been taught? (Many times I’ve talked with people who discovered that what they thought was in the Bible actually isn’t!) Find a teacher–in person or read commentaries.
You see someone with an aura of calm assurance and deep joy. You wish you could have it.
You can. Practice deep prayer with intent. Every day. Maybe three times a day like Daniel in the Hebrew scriptures. There will come a time of realization that you have changed. You’re calmer in interactions. You’re not so easily worked up.
You see someone who is a dedicated servant to others. They cook for a “soup kitchen” or serve food or offer hospitality at church. Wow, I wish I could be like them.
You can. Ask how you can help at the soup kitchen or the homeless shelter or at church. Practice doing with intent to be a server.
Or, back to the original story. Find a teacher of piano or guitar. Practice daily. Maybe begin to serve by playing at small church gatherings. Invite people to your house for some music and food. Or find friends to do that.
You can do it. Intent. Practice. Repeat. Go for it!
Computer science professor Cal Newport writes on the intersection of technology and life. His latest thinking involves reducing the distraction of smart phones and digging behind the hype of AI.
He synthesized some research recently on his podcast regarding cognitive fitness. I think these easily fit within a spiritual disciplines or practices framework.
Newport suggests five routines that promote cognitive fitness:
These are great ideas. Transforming these to assist our spiritual development takes but a small step.
Coach Lou Holtz offers 3 rules: “I follow three rules: Do the right thing, do the best you can, and always show people you care.”
A truly ingrained habit forms not through motivation, but through consistency, through repeating actions until they become automatic. Through repetition. Don’t wait for motivation (he says as he’s waiting to get motivated to practice the guitar).
Because what you repeat becomes who you are.
From my earliest memories of high school, I recall loving to learn from a variety of sources trying to synthesize knowledge and experience.
Fitness has been a goal since the mid-70s when I moved from a job in manufacturing where I walked miles a day to a desk job in engineering where I walked feet per day. It happened in late summer. The first of April I went out to play softball and couldn’t run from home to first base. I joined the jogging craze the next day.
Now in my mid-70s I walk miles and resistance train. Like Yoga was developed thousands of years ago to train the body for sitting in meditation, the physical fitness helps my mental and spiritual fitness.
I use The Pump app to guide my program. It’s designed by Arnold Schwarzenegger and two guy who work closely with him. One just interviewed his boss.
Arnold Schwarzenegger Trained for 60 Years Without Counting a Calorie. Research Explains Why It Worked. The science of decision fatigue, goal complexity, and why simpler approaches to health are also the ones with the strongest evidence.
So I asked him: after sixty years of training, what has actually lasted? He gave me the answer, and I realized I already knew it. The basics. It’s always the basics that work best.
When we’re given too many choices, too much complication, too much nuance, we’re less likely to act on any of them and less satisfied when we do. When a health plan contains too many decisions — which supplement? which protocol? which meal timing window? — every micro-choice draws from the same limited cognitive well. You deplete that resource before you ever get to execution.
A lifetime of studying and teaching the Bible has taught me the same thing about spiritual life. I love studying the earliest Jesus followers. For 300 years, they sought to live out what Jesus taught. We can tell from some early letters that have been preserved that avoiding the too human pitfalls sometimes complicated life.
The answer invariably returned to Jesus’ two commands. You shall love the Lord your God and your neighbor as yourself.
Period. Full stop.
Everyone who tries to complicate those commands with more options and decisions and complexity have strayed from the simple path. Physicists call it first principles.
(Oh, how am I doing? And how are you doing?)
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We are in the season of Lent. Some people practice “fasting” as giving up something for Lent. I had an older friend, a devout Catholic, who gave up fried food, deserts, and beer for Lent. He lost several pounds over the six weeks or so. Easter Sunday was feast day. I think he gained it all back in a day!
The annual story around my village concerned a guy who gave up watermelon for Lent. Of course, there was no watermelon to be found.
How about you? Have you given up (renounced) anything? Maybe like being on a diet. You need to drop 15-20 pounds or more. Instead of changing your lifestyle, you focus on the foods you now cannot eat.
Then, has this happened?
Every time you renounce something, you are tied forever to it.
Some spirituality teaches to give up things. That ties you to them. Simply wake up, understand, and then the desire goes away.
The better way:
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I recently heard this phrase a podcaster applied to himself—promiscuous overcommitment.
A great phrase.
I recently wrote about what “yes” is powerful enough to override the default “no”.
Think on this phrase.
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Gary Mintchell
Faith Venture 