Faith Venture

At a church team meeting this week, I related about the post I made regarding spiritual disciplines as “work.” And how someone was upset with the idea of working. Now, I took the comment to be from someone like some people I know who think work (as in expending energy doing something) as a bad thing. “Boomers” as a generation bought into the idea 30 years ago that work was something you did to make as much money as possible so that by 50 you could stop working.

Of course the pastor took the word in its theological context of “works”–as in “you are saved by grace, not works.” (Ah, you gotta love those theologians.)

Jesus argued that the Jewish religion he grew up in had tried the “salvation by works” thing and it didn’t work (oops, bad pun, try “succeed”). People were not closer to God simply by obeying the rules. In fact, many who played by the rules were far from God.

Jesus taught there was another way–it was easy, but it was also hard. He said all you had to do was believe. To us, that sounds easy, because we take that word believe to mean that we say agree with the proposition that “Jesus saves us from our sins” and that’s it. And in America, that’s easy. Not so easy in China, even today. Or many other places around the world. But still easier.

Faith to Jesus was more than saying a few words or even an emotional feeling. Jesus said, if you believe in my words you will love one another. Love (agape) once again is an action verb, not a feeling. Or, Jesus said, you will go and make disciples. Paul said, we must work out our faith in fear and trembling, and in another place, you will be equipped for all good work.

Obviously, we must not just sit around discussing what the Bible says. We must “be doers of the Word, not hearers only.”

I’m still studying John and just came across one of my favorite metaphors–“I am the vine and you are the branches.” Spiritual disciplines are sort of like consciously chosen habits. The habit (or discipline) of prayer can be pictured as being a branch and finding all our nutrients coming from the main vine. The habit (or discipline) of service can be pictured as the branch growing a bunch of grapes (bearing fruit).

Now, the question is, are you better at one discipline than another? Should you be consciously cultivating another habit to get you into that flow of life from Jesus into a new disciple? I’m better at prayer and study. Weaker at service. That means I need to cultivate a service.

It’s not complicated. Just requires you to get up and get going.

Going through my independence-seeking years of late adolescence, I thought of discipline as a verb. The sense was someone was forcing you to do something–you were being disciplined. Discipline became a metaphorical straight-jacket where you were constrained. Your freedom was curtailed. You were at the mercy of someone else.

My favorite writer on living a life of simplicity, Leo Babauta, thinks of discipline as a set of habits (he recently published an ebook on habits, so it’s on his mind). I think there is a relationship between discipline and habits, but they are not the same thing.

What life has taught me is that you will accomplish very little without discipline. Practicing spiritual disciplines (before I knew they had been named) and then studying Richard Foster (Celebration of Discipline) and Dallas Willard (The Spirit of the Disciplines) has led to experience and knowledge of the power of discipline.

But I don’t consider “self-discipline” the same thing as “will power” either. You can’t really force yourself into discipline.

Discipline rightly understood is the self-directed choice of certain habits that lead you toward a goal–and for most of us, the goal is that of a fulfilled life.

I’m thinking about this, because I’m developing a course on spiritual discipline. But not as an educational, mental, theoretical exercise. Rather more it would be a leading of people into understanding and practicing a life of spiritual discipline.

You could begin practicing right now. In fact, you may already be doing it. Maybe you just need to be aware so that you do it consciously. Some spiritual disciplines include prayer, meditation, study, service, worship.