I feel I
spend half my life encouraging others to develop spiritual disciplines. I have quite a few that are firmly
established. I never realized that my
own spiritual disciplines could become detached from God until I followed the
Holy Spirit’s leading recently. It was
very revealing and so good for my soul.
I was led
to develop a class around spiritual disciplines that have had a great impact on
the women and men who have gone through the class. In the class, they are introduced to the
Christian Classics, have an overview of the entire Bible and are asked to try
out a spiritual discipline for a week.
After the class is completed they write a rule of life, choosing the
spiritual disciplines that help them remain most connected to God. It’s not the class itself that has the
impact. It is the time, place, persons
that God calls to meet together to become a community of spiritual of
transformation through the Holy Spirit.
I have taught this class one-on-one, in a two-hour weekly teaching
setting, and in a small group using the same curriculum about seven times. This season I am using the material
one-on-one again in a discipling relationship.
So, when we arrived at the spiritual discipline of detachment and one of
the suggestions was to detach from your spiritual disciplines, I was familiar
with the instruction. However, I never
thought that idea was for me. I love my
spiritual disciplines. In fact, it is the
first thing I do each morning after grabbing a cup of coffee, of course. I am so committed to my spiritual disciplines
that I painstakingly photocopy the 5 different books I read each morning in
addition to the journal where I write my daily examen, Bible word or phrase,
and prayer focus. In addition to all of
that I have added Centering Prayer for 20 minutes. When I am on a mission trip or even a family
vacation, I do not miss the practice of my spiritual disciplines. It is just that important to me.
That was
clearly the reason that the Holy Spirit nudged me to give detaching from my spiritual
disciplines a try. What a sweet
journey. I can’t say I didn’t miss my
devotional books. I like to be inspired
by Christian classic instruction that has lasted through the centuries. I did not miss a deep awareness of God’s love
and presence with me that I learned to experience by reading His word
daily. The word literally became flesh
for me as I drove east and observed the most unique sunrise that seemed to be
meant especially for me. I was driving
just at the time that the sun was a red-orange giant ball, and it remained that
way for a long time. As it diminished to
a smaller size, it remained that brilliant color and never hurt my eyes. I felt that I was pleasing Him by not having
my daily devotion time and thought of Him more throughout the day. My four-day detaching was spiritually
fruitful and made day five when I went back to my normal practices more
meaningful.
It’s
important to develop holy habits. Most
people I talk to have not developed a deep attachment to focusing on God daily
through prayer and the word. I don’t
know a better place to start if you really want to hear from God. You need to learn His language. I needed to be careful that my holy habits
weren’t leading me to a delusion that I was meeting with God when perhaps I was
boxing God into my own experience of Him.
What a
beautiful reminder of Isaiah 55:9: As the heavens are higher than
the earth, so
are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than
your thoughts.
Who would have guessed that leaving my holy habits behind would produce
a more holy experience? I’m so amazed by
our wonderful God who longs to commune with us.
How patient, kind, and personal he is!
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