Discipline Yourself- The Practice of Spiritual Disciplines

Why Practice Spiritual Disciplines?

Romans 12:2 ESV

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

We have been talking about making room, if and when we make room what will fill the space left, remember our natural abhors a vacuum

Our wellness challenge for the month of January encourages us to be conscience of the rhythms of our souls

I suggest that the practice of the Spiritual Disciplines could be or should be part of our soul rhythms

That not only would these disciplines fill the room that has been made, but invade the space, and make room for themselves

Exploring Habits

A lot of research and scientific study has been given to this area of habits

Excerpt from Healthline on where habits come from

But where do habits come from?

Your sensory nervous system is always monitoring for actions you can take that will deliver a hit of dopamine, the brain’s reward chemical. We’re wired to seek out pleasure.

“Any habit we develop is because our brain is designed to pick up on things that reward us and punish us,” explains Dr. Sanam Hafeez, a clinical psychologist and neuropsychologist based in New York City.

When your brain recognizes a pattern, such as a connection between action and satisfaction, it files that information away neatly in an area of the brain called the basal ganglia. This is also where we develop emotions and memories, but it’s not where conscious decisions are made — that’s the prefrontal cortex.

This may be what makes habits so hard to break. They come from a brain region that’s out of your conscious control, so you’re barely aware you’re doing them, if at all.

These unconscious decisions created “cow paths” in the brain- illustrated by my experience growing up on a farm

How long does it take for habits to form? From James Clear- author of Atomic Habits

Maxwell Maltz was a plastic surgeon in the 1950s when he began noticing a strange pattern among his patients.

When Dr. Maltz would perform an operation — like a nose job, for example — he found that it would take the patient about 21 days to get used to seeing their new face. Similarly, when a patient had an arm or a leg amputated, Maxwell Maltz noticed that the patient would sense a phantom limb for about 21 days before adjusting to the new situation.

These experiences prompted Maltz to think about his own adjustment period to changes and new behaviors, and he noticed that it also took himself about 21 days to form a new habit. Maltz wrote about these experiences and said, “These, and many other commonly observed phenomena tend to show that it requires a minimum of about 21 days for an old mental image to dissolve and a new one to jell.”

Phillippa Lally is a health psychology researcher at University College London. In a study published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, Lally and her research team decided to figure out just how long it actually takes to form a habit.

The study examined the habits of 96 people over a 12-week period. Each person chose one new habit for the 12 weeks and reported each day on whether or not they did the behavior and how automatic the behavior felt.

Some people chose simple habits like “drinking a bottle of water with lunch.” Others chose more difficult tasks like “running for 15 minutes before dinner.” At the end of the 12 weeks, the researchers analyzed the data to determine how long it took each person to go from starting a new behavior to automatically doing it.

The answer?

On average, it takes more than 2 months before a new behavior becomes automatic — 66 days to be exact. And how long it takes a new habit to form can vary widely depending on the behavior, the person, and the circumstances. In Lally’s study, it took anywhere from 18 days to 254 days for people to form a new habit.

In other words, if you want to set your expectations appropriately, the truth is that it will probably take you anywhere from two months to eight months to build a new behavior into your life — not 21 days.

Interestingly, the researchers also found that “missing one opportunity to perform the behavior did not materially affect the habit formation process.” In other words, it doesn’t matter if you mess up every now and then. Building better habits is not an all-or-nothing process.

It’s All About the Why

A pillar of cognitive therapy says- “Try new things and pay attention to how they make you feel.”

It’s using the brain to rewire the brain, it takes cognitive effort “discipline” because remember habits are not formed and stored in the “unconscious” portion of our brain.

Donald Whitney author of the book “Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life” who’s work I will be using as a reference says this- “Discipline without Direction is Drudgery”

This is true of how we approach disciplines like prayer, bible reading, fasting, if we lack a sense of direction-purpose in doing them

What Direction are We Heading In?

As Christians this is what we will become-the direction we are heading

Romans 8:29 ESV

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

This is who we will become when Christ returns, but in the mean time we aren’t merely to sit around and wait for it to come but we are to grow toward it as we live out this life

How is it that we become more Christ like?

1 Timothy 4:7–8 ESV

Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

We train ourselves for godliness-this is the purpose of spiritual disciplines

To become more like Jesus, to encounter him

The spiritual disciplines put us on the way/path of Jesus- like Blind Bartimaeus and Zacchaeus in Luke 18-19

As Donald Whitney would suggest when we understand this, grasp hold of this why, then spiritual disciplines will not be drudgery

5 Characteristics of Spiritual Disciplines

1. Personal and Corporate

The Bible prescribes and Jesus models both personal and and interpersonal disciplines- those that we practice alone and those we practice with other Christians

Prayer- we are to pray alone-we also pray with the church

Worship in song-

Bible Intake- we read alone-we are also to hear or be taught the word, that happens together

There are some disciplines that are by their nature more personal or corporate- In the same way as individuals we have an tendency toward practicing these disciplines in more individual or corporate ways

The Bible prescribes and Jesus models both personal and and interpersonal disciplines

2. Doing and Being

Spiritual disciplines are activities, they are things you do, they are not character qualities, they are not fruits of the spirit, they are things you do

Read, pray, fast, worship, meditate, serve,- these are all things that you do

The goal is not the doing as much as it is about being- being or becoming more Christ like

1 Timothy 4:7 ESV

Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness;

The biblical way in being more like Jesus is through rightly motivated doing of biblical spiritual disciplines

They can be done with wrongly motivated and that only makes us like the Pharisees

It’s not about the doing its about the being-being more like Christ- “train yourself for godliness”

3. Modeled in the Bible and Promoted in Scripture

Its important that this be a descriptor of spiritual disciplines otherwise we leave ourselves open to calling anything a spiritual discipline.

For example one could say “Gardening is a spiritual discipline for me” or “Exercise is one of my spiritual disciplines” or any other hobby or pleasurable habits could be called spiritual disciplines

The temptation in that thinking is to say that “maybe meditation on scripture works for you but gardening or exercise does just as much for my soul as the Bible does for yours

Secondly it leaves us to determine what is best for our spiritual health and maturity instead of accepting those things God has revealed and Jesus modeled in scripture as means for growing in godliness

4. Derived from the Gospel

Spiritual disciplines are not divorced from the Gospel

Rightly practiced the take us deeper into the glories of the gospel, not away from it as though we have advanced into some higher level of Christianity

The spiritual disciples are derived from the gospel and are intended to take us deeper into an understanding of it

5. Means, Not End

The end of practicing spiritual disciplines is- goodliness

So we are not godly just because we practice the spiritual disciples, that was the error of the Pharisees

Rightly motivated they are means to goodliness-

Conclusion-

1 Timothy 4:7 ESV

Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness;

But discipline or training without direction is drudgery

Remember- ultimately we wait and long for the day when we will be made into the likeness of Christ when he returns but while we live on this or we train ourselves more and more into his him

The practice of spiritual disciplines, described and modeled in scripture, done individually and corporately are a means to the goodliness the we are command toward