Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Celebration: {Day 21} In Spiritual Disciplines

Prayer.  Praise.  Bible reading.  Memorization.  Study.  Going to church.

I said that grace helped me realize that all of life could be worship, not just things like reading my Bible.

But that doesn't mean I've left all those things (the so-called "spiritual disciplines") to the side.  Oh, no.  It just means that my attitude towards them has changed.  My motivation for them has changed.  And they might look a little different than they did before.

Prayer has become less of a closing-my-eyes-and-starting-with-Dear-God thing.  It's more like the kind of conversation you'd have with a close friend: you talk about everything, the big and the little, the good and the bad, the funny, the sad, the scary, the beautiful.  You sometimes sit down just to talk, but you also can talk as you go about your daily dish-washing, toilet-scrubbing, laundry-hanging life.  You're safe and free to share your heart without obsessing about getting your words exactly right.  You don't talk because you have to, but because you trust them, you know they care, and you enjoy their company.

I don't read my Bible anymore with the expectation that simply reading it will make me holier.  I read it because I love the stories of what my Hero has done (and because I know He is the same Hero today!).  I read it because I believe what God has to say in its pages actually matters for my life - that He actually has something relevant to say to me, today.  Pretty incredible, when you think about it!

And memorizing?  It's no longer an exercise in mental agility.  (Side note: I used to chose long passages - even whole books - to memorize because "more is better [holier]!"  Never mind about whether or not I actually let the truths in what I was memorizing sink down into my heart.)  Now, I tend to memorize certain verses because a verse or passage hits me where I'm at, and I want to remember it.  For instance, if I'm struggling with fear, I'm not going to choose a verse on fear in the hopes that simply repeating it over and over to myself will banish the fear.  I'd choose to memorize it because I know I need that truth - because I've already been helped in some measure by reading it, and I want to keep that encouragement close to my heart.

The list could go on, of course.  What would you say?  Has grace changed any of these things for you?

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