Faith Venture

It starts with tiredness and dehydration. The throat begins to feel sore. Sinuses are dry.

In the fall perhaps it’s ragweed. In the spring, myriad possibilities.

The pollen finds a welcome home.

The body’s physical systems become out of sync.

Practicing disciplines of hydration, nutrition, exercise, the body’s rhythms will be restored.

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It starts with a comment, spoken or read. From acquaintance or news source.

Distraction or tiredness allows the thought entry into the mind.

Soon our thoughts dwell on fear of others, uncertainty of future life, doubt of others.

Our minds and souls are captured.

We must gather our inner forces. Remember to live with intention.

Practicing disciplines of study, prayer, worship, gathering with guides, and our emotional and spiritual rhythms will be restored.

We think that we will study spiritual writing. We think about that for a month or two. We make a list:

• Buy a Bible
• Buy a study guide
• Look for a class
• Scroll through YouTube searching for a compatible teacher

We think that we really should begin with prayer and meditation. We heard that we should have a special chair or perhaps a prayer cushion. Maybe we need an aromatherapy candle. Maybe we should buy a cross. We think. We make a list:

• Set aside a space
• Tell ourselves to awaken 30 minutes earlier
• Determine the kind of chair of pillow
• Tell ourselves what time slot we’ll pray

Do we ever study? Do we ever pray and meditate?

No.

We think about it. Thinking about these things gives us great pleasure. People ask. We say that yes, we have decided to study and pray. We feel spiritual.

Or…

We pull a copy of the Bible from the shelf. Blow off the dust. Open to a Gospel. And start reading. We let our imagination and curiosity loose. We have questions and find someone to discuss those.

Or…

We pause in the early morning even for just a moment. We close our eyes. We regulate our breathing—slow down, in/out,  in rhythm. We turn our thoughts toward God. Recognizing that the thoughts will drift, we gently return to God. It may only be five minutes. Or even two. But, we did it. And it feels better.

Someday could be today.

A little at a time over time. A consistent approach.

Physical fitness and health link to emotional fitness and health link to spiritual fitness and health.

Sure, genes and traumatic incidents play a significant role in physical and emotional illnesses. But for as much as we can control, we can work on all of these intertwined parts of our whole life.

Arnold Schwarzenegger and his team call it the “Positive Corner of the Internet.” Their newsletter is filled with evaluation of studies and nutritional guides designed to help us improve our physical selves. 

Today’s issue reported three studies that all showed how consistency of even small improvements in diet and exercise significantly impact health and well being.

I add that the same approach to spiritual fitness works. Say you are starting from no spiritual discipline. Just getting out of bed five minutes earlier to read half of a chapter of a Gospel or to take those moments to focus on God done regularly leads to noticeable improvements in how you feel during the day. Soon you will find that five minutes expand to a half-hour. Perhaps half reading something that feeds the mind and soul and then meditating on that for the other fifteen minutes.

Make a subtle change in what and how you eat by cutting portion size

Park you car in the employee parking lot or supermarket lot such that you walk more

Rise early to spend just a few minutes of reading and meditation

Those three small disciplines at whatever stage of life you are in will improve your life.

Pogo, a cartoon character from long ago, announced to his friends, “We have met the enemy, and they are us.”

We know the spiritual disciplines or practices that help us open up to God: meditation, prayer, study, worship, service.

The gap between knowing and doing can sometimes be easily stepped over and we proceed. Sometimes the gap is a chasm we cannot cross. Only to discover that the creator of that chasm is us.

We didn’t find that chair in the morning to sit and pray and meditate. We think we are not spiritual enough, and besides, we’d rather get another half-hour of sleep.

We set out that book to study and never opened it. We tell ourselves we are not smart enough to understand. It’ll be too hard. We’re too tired to think. We look at the book and then notice our phone. We pick the phone up first because it’s entertaining and easy. Then our entire study time just got sucked into the drain of nonsense.

We didn’t even bother to open a door for a mother struggling with a package and an infant or for someone handicapped struggling with a non-handicapped accessible door. We think that someone else will help. It’s not my job. Or like someone I was mentoring long ago, “I don’t care.”

There’s a word Jesus uses in the story of Martha and Mary. The Greek word of course can be translated with any one of a number of English words. I saw in one translation the word distracted.

That resonates. We allow ourselves (remember the story “the toy is broken” where we dodge responsibility) to be distracted by many things.

The opposite is focus. Sometime I sit before the laptop and find that I must take a deep breath and mentally bring myself into focus on the task. Or the same when I must repair something. It is my job to find that way to bring myself into focus on what is important at that moment. When something in you suggests an easy way out, tell it to take a rest, I have something important to do.

Arnold Schwarzenegger has exhorted people into a fitness life for his entire adult life. In a recent newsletter, he wrote this:

The basics are simple: Eat protein Eat vegetables and fruits Eat healthy carbs Train with the movements that have always worked Walk Drink enough water Sleep If you can’t check all of those boxes — and be honest with yourself, count this weekend where you ate wings and fries and drank beers and missed your workouts and never saw a vegetable — why are you worried about what supplement to take, or the perfect workout, or the “optimal” diet? You aren’t trying now. You’re stalling. You think one of these things might be a magic pill.

John Wesley taught his own set of spiritual basics:

• Prayer
• Study the Scriptures
• Participate in the Lord’s Supper

My advice—do both sets of basics for a balanced and healthy life.

Humans have long discovered a set of practices that help change lives for the better and orient the heart toward God. Over time a set of them were known as Spiritual Practices, Spiritual Disciplines, or even Means of Grace.

Richard J. Foster published a seminal book approachable by all called “Celebration of Discipline.” Somewhat later, Dallas Willard published “The Spirit of the Disciplines.” Foster was a Quaker pastor. Willard was a professor of philosophy. For a time, Willard was a member of Foster’s congregation. (I would have loved to have been there at the time.) You can tell the difference in orientation by reading the two books.

The disciplines (others say practices) do not bind one as in a straitjacket. They are meant to be incorporated in the routines of life that lead to the sort of freedom that Jesus taught or that Paul tried to explain especially in his letter to the Galatians.

Foster narrowed his topic to a “Top Twelve” disciplines or practices. My writing at this blog and my other teaching has a root in these. Probably too much on meditation and study along with service (my strengths, I guess). Submission and confession probably reside at the bottom of my list. (Note to self: something to work on.)

I offer this list of disciplines that Foster describes in some depth in the book. They are worthy of reflection regarding where we are on this journey. And as a reminder of where we should shore up our personal practices.

Inward Disciplines

• Meditation
• Prayer
• Fasting
• Study

Outward Disciplines

• Simplicity
• Solitude
• Submission
• Service

Corporate Disciplines

• Confession
• Worship
• Guidance
• Celebration