*********LONG POST WARNING**************
So, we have two things we need to attend to if we want to work toward spiritual fitness: knowing and being. Like any workout program, there will be different exercises, with different amounts of weight and repetitions (metaphor alert!). Let's take stock of our current spiritual "workout."
What is your program? What are you doing, specifically. What needs to be added? Are things in balance?
Here is what I am doing. Don't be that impressed, it looks better on paper than it really is, there are some big gaps (can you see them?), and I have a long way to go. But I have reaped huge benefits, spiritually, which I hope I can articulate to you over time so that you can motivate yourself to workout. Hopefully, this will give you some ideas of my efforts and help you with your program
Head Workout:
1) I usually have a book by a spiritual giant going. I try to avoid reading the latest popular contemporary Christian writers. I worry that many of them are primarily at the head level in their own life (smart people who write well, but don't have much to offer). I try to go to those that have a track record and have proven themselves over some time. Right now, I am reading a book by N.T. Wright called Simply Christian. Other recent books include authors like Dallas Willard and Henri Nouwen. I probably spend more time reading these types of books than I do my bible, partly because of what we posted about earlier. I do some reading most every day, usually just before bedtime (serves a dual purpose, knowledge and putting me to sleep).
2) I follow a couple of blogs. I like the JesusCreed blog. He is a theologian, so it is pretty heady and scholarly at times. I usually read these on my lunch hour, most every day.
3) I do this blog with you (this is primarily head stuff, btw), usually during lunch time several times per week
4) I go to church (it counts!) weekly and listen to the sermons
5) I go to my adult life group each week, where we primarily are in our heads
6) I do youth each week (except in summers), which causes me to think about things and prepare lessons
7) I have been doing an 8 week study over the summer with three other guys from church each Monday morning on the spiritual disciplines
8) I have spontaneous conversations about spiritual issues with some key people, mainly my daughter, Derek's friends when they are over, whoever and whenever the opportunity arises
9) I am a thinker, so I would have to include random thinking about God and spiritual issues when I am running most every day or throughout the day
I think this is most of the head things.
Heart:
1) MUG times: I do these "semi-regular." Not necessarily every day at a particular time. I am not obsessive-compulsive and have learned to not use other people as a standard. I try to sense when I need a MUG time. I have learned that too much time between MUG times and life is not as good, but I also do not cut out other things that I think God would want me to do, just so that I can fulfill some self-imposed obligation.
During my MUG times I try to do some reflective bible reading (do you know what that is?) for about 10-20 minutes, if I have time.
I also do about 20 minutes of "prayer" time. We will have to talk about what I mean by prayer. Richard Foster wrote a book on prayer with one chapter for each type of prayer. It had 21 chapters. Only 2 related to what probably comes up in your head when you think of prayer. Most of the time, it is some form of contemplative prayer (to be defined later).
2) I do meditative walks, probably one a week - more or less, mostly less, depending. No routine here, I just try to take advantage of opportunities
3) Prayer of examen, which has two types: Examen of conscience and examen of consciousness (which I will sometimes do in conjunction with my meditative walk or contemplative prayer) , We can talk about these sometime later. It is one of my favorite spiritual exercises.
4) Run (parts of it can be spiritual, kind of like fasting) most every day
5) Listen to inspirational (not necessarily religious) music or see movies, when I can (which is not often enough)
6) Practicing the presence of Jesus (also called continous prayer, living in the moment, shoving back the wild animals, a real-time prayer of examen (examen of consciousness)). I practice this for moments and minutes most every day and for 2 hours once per week when I am with the homeless on Tuesday nights. I am working on increasing this. It is huge.
7) I intentionally put myself in positions to test my heart, like going down to interact with the homeless once per week for about 2 hours. They represent the most marginalized humans in the Little Rock and the US. They are the dredges of our society. Like us, they were created in the image of God. I am trying to see that image in them.
8) Infrequent, but periodic big events. Two years ago I was homeless for the weekend. Last year, I did a two day meditative retreat (16 hours of different types of meditation, it was awesome!). This time last year, I spent 6 days in literal solitude in one of the most beautiful spots on the planet (24 miles from any road) and climbed the highest mountain in the continential US. It was 24 hours of pure heart stuff for 6 days. Incredible! Indescribable!
I think this covers most of the heart stuff. I feel like I have just scratched the surface in this area. I have a lot of work to do to put myself in a position to experience God's grace more.
Later I will post some on what I think I am lacking and where I think God is working on improvements. I want to get us out of the theoretical and down to the practical.
What about you?
12 comments:
Like I said, don't be impressed.
What I would encourage you to do is expand the list of things you could do in each of these two areas and take some time to practice doing several of them. You will find that some things work well for you and others not so well. You need to stretch yourself.
How about going through the bible in one year? Memorizing some key bible passages? What about some other things you could add to your list? Ask some other people you respect.
Have you had a heart moment today, planned or unplanned?
Mine occured on my run tonight. I got to the top of the hill. It was quite, the wind was blowing gently. It was what is called a "thin place" where the perceived distance between God and I was "thinner" than normal. Did you have one today?
Only you will know if it is a heart thing. You need to learn what it is like. These types of moments can be experienced as you go through life, but often we miss opportunities to "drop in."
That is why we need to practice. In practice, we get better at dropping in and it puts us in a position to do so more often in our everyday life.
Do you have some exercises that you can practice?
Is that doing it for you?
Let me see if I hear what you are saying. Let's go back to the physical fitness metaphor, say strength.
You feel your muscles will just get stronger by going about your usual business and letting spontaneous things that you do build up your muscles? You look in the mirror and you are satisfied, maybe even somewhat impressed, with your level of buffness.
Now that was all a metaphor. To translate it to your situation. You look at your spiritual fitness in the heart area and feel it is just fine. You will go through your day and trying and see if things will happen that will make you drop in. Do more? What the heck, couldn't hurt, but since things are just fine, probably not.
Am I close?
You are right about it being a journey! And you cannot get to point B before you get to point A. Sounds like you are moving, compared to last year.
The interesting questions are:
1) Are you moving in the right direction? (doing the things you need to do)
2) Are you moving at the right speed? (doing enough of what you need to do)
3) How do you judge where you should be as far as direction and speed?
4) How do you determine what you should do and what God should/will do?
Any ideas?
PS: Having second thoughts about what we are doing?
You know that the "journey" is a metaphor for our spiritual life. So, sticking with the metaphor, if we are on a journey, then we need to ask ourself if we are going in the right direction and fast enough.
Direction? That is what we have been trying to work through. I have suggested we need to attend to three areas: knowing, being and doing. It stretches the metaphor, but I would argue that if you are not working these three areas, or you are neglecting an area, you may be moving in the wrong direction.
We have not talked much about the doing part. We will have to tackle that sometime.
I gotta stop now (bedtime). Will post more later.
Yes, I was talking about the mentoring thing. Glad to hear that I am not scaring you away! Good for you.
Excellent questions, Aaron!
How about this one: Can you be a Christian and not a disciple?
Dallas Willard (a modern day Christian philosopher) asks some interesting questions along the same lines:
Are disciples just the deluxe, heavy-duty model of a Christian?
Is discipleship optional?
Does obedience and training in obedience have any intellectual and practical unity with the "salvation" presented in many contemporary churches?
These are some very interesting questions! Ask you brother, Isaac. We discussed these types of questions a lot last year in our life group.
We could debate this, but you would probably do best to go right to Jesus and see what he is calling you to.
Do you know what his message was? He stayed on message throughout his ministry. Check out Matthew, what does it say Jesus did right after he came out of the desert. (Read the black letters carefully!) Then go to the end of Matthew and check out what he said right before he ascended.
Of course, the last passage is the Great Commission. Willard wrote a book call The Great Omission. It is about the great omission from the great commission. Read the GC carefully. Based on what you observe in the church, what do you think Willard would say is the great omission?
Good thoughts, Aaron. Just by asking the questions you are puts you in the game.
The word disciple needs to be defined. It has become a church term. Can you think of another, non-church word, that means the same thing? Isaac should know if he was paying attention at all last year.
Wow, you seem confused about the whole disciple thing. Seems important doesn't it?
Don't get confused, Aaron. Religion and theology is pretty abstract stuff and can get you that way.
It is not that hard. It is not rocket science.
Check out Mat 11:29-30. Meditate on it for 10 minutes (set you timer, and slowly read these verses over and over. Ask God to show you what they mean. This will be a heart thing!)
James made it pretty simple, didn't he. What is true religion and faith?
There is more. Give it time, Aaron. Jesus taught a lot and you need to learn from him. That is what it means to be a disciple. If you consent to be his disciple, you will need to follow him around for a metaphorical three years (like the disciples did). Don't worry about the great commission. That is the task of trained disciples. At this point, you are the target of disciples! Disciples of Jesus will want to make you one.
Yes, disciple can be defined! We have no church words that I think capture it better for in our day and age. Ask Isaac, he should know!
The great omission?
Read the great commission (Mat 28). What has the contemporary church omitted (in practice) from the great commission? (hint: we put lots of energy and resources into one part of it and almost nothing into the other part).
You are only 14 and I'll bet even you can figure this one out!
Isaac!!!! No, it is not friend! I guess our year of life group did not have much of an impact on him!
Today, nobody but church people use the word disciple much. A word we often use in our culture that means the same things is apprentice. When I was a mechanic, we had Journeymen, or Master Mechanics. An person in training worked under a Journeyman to be taught the trade. We were apprentices. Same thing goes on in sports. We apprentice under a coach. Same when learning a musical instrument.
An apprentice whats to learn to do what the Journeyman can do. The apprentice wants to be like the Jounreyman.
Jesus asks his disciples to follow him. To spend time with him to learn to do what he does and to learn to be like him. The mistake many Christians make is that they think that it will happen by grace "raining down." So we wait. We study our bibles. We pray. We go to church. And we wait some more. But we fail to do what we know we have to do if we want to master any other area of our life: to practice.
More later, gotta go.
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