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Spiritual Discipline

I continue to read Robert Mulholland’s Shaped By the Word. Today’s reading included a section regarding spiritual discipline which I found relevant as I continue to struggle with spiritual discipline.

Ultimately spiritual disciplines are not something we choose for ourselves. This is another problem we have in our individualized, privatized form of religion in our culture. We think spiritual disciplines are something we take on.We decide we need to grow in some particular area of our spiritual life, so we set to work in this area to develop some spiritual disciplines.” The only problem is that when we develop our own spiritual disciplines, they have a way of being compatible with who we are and what we do. I don’t mind taking up the cross and following God as long as I can choose when I’m going to take it up and who see it and praise me for it. Even though such disciplines may not be easy, I can handle them as long as I’m getting those kinds of ego boosts by being allowed to do it my own way.

Genuine spiritual disciplines intrude into our lives at points where we are in bondage to something that diminishes the word God speaks us forth to be. These disciplines occur in our bondage to our own brokenness from which God is seeking to liberate us. At this level, spiritual disciplines are not comfortable. Spiritual disciplines are a grace that comes to us from God. We may not initially see them as coming from God’s hand; but once we have submitted ourselves humbly to them, have become responsive to the disciplines, and have begun to experience the growth and wholeness they bring, we begin to realize they are a gift of God. They are God’s doing all along-not our own.