Gratitude: Spiritual Disciplines

This post is a part of an ongoing series on spiritual disciplines, which are tools that bring us into contact with the Lord so that His presence can shape our lives. Learn more here.

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It’s nearly impossible to not think about thanks-giving during this season of the year. How could you not, as we anticipate and plan for a holiday by the same name? Tomorrow, many of us will gather with family and friends around food-laden tables to celebrate Thanksgiving. Some families will set aside time during the day to reflect on the year and speak their thanks for the blessings within it.

While it’s helpful to mark seasons for thanksgiving into our year, Thanksgiving is more than a holiday, as I’m sure most of you would agree. It is appropriate all year round, in all seasons. But while we know thanksgiving and gratitude should be continuous threads weaving through our lives, how often do we think of gratitude as a spiritual discipline?

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Bible Study Methods: Spiritual Disciplines

Most of us have been there—sitting down in the morning, cup of coffee in one hand, Bible in the other. We flip through thin pages until we find where we left off the day before, and we pick up with the next chapter or verse. The tiny words dance in front of our eyes, as we try to concentrate, try to pay attention to what the Lord might have for us in His Word that morning. We read the section—a few verses, a few chapters—and although we know we did something good by taking the time to read the Bible, we’re left with the question “now what?” as we end. So we sigh, not sure how to approach this passage of Scripture, not really sure what to do with it, we close the covers of our Bibles and put it away until (hopefully) the next morning.

While I hope that this is not always the case for us, friends, I know there are seasons in which we need something fresh to apply to our Bible study. It is not that the Bible is insufficient. It is that our eyes and ears need some freshening up. We need to cycle back to the simple basics.

I have said previously that there is more to spiritual disciplines than the traditional evangelical “quiet time.” This is true. But regardless of what our spiritual life may look like, we cannot escape the importance of the Bible. It must find a place in our walk with the Lord—though what that looks like may vary based on our season of life or temperament. The Bible contains the words of God for us. It reminds us who He is, what He has done, and what He is doing. It shows us his way to live, inviting us into the abundant life of following his commands. We cannot set the Bible aside or shrug off the critical importance it holds for the Christian life.

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Fixed Hour Prayer: Spiritual Disciplines

This post is a part of an ongoing series on spiritual disciplines, which are tools that bring us into contact with the Lord so that His presence can shape our lives. Learn more here.

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For hundreds of years, monks in monastic orders across the world have paused throughout the day to pray. These structured prayer times are typically called the Daily (or Divine) Office or the Liturgy of the Hours. Since the 5th-century, there have been seven set times of prayer for monastic communities (though in the 6th-century, Benedict added an 8th prayer time).

It’s easy to see how your day would become shaped around and centered on prayer if about every three hours—including the middle of the night—you stopped what you were doing to pray. It would change your focus. God could not be an afterthought.

This wasn’t a practice that was made up in the early middle ages, though. Regular times of prayer throughout the day was a Jewish practice, it would seem, since the time of the Old Testament. It was also a part of the early Christian church.

Consider any mother at home with young children—it’s impossible for them to be forgotten because they keep breaking into her world. They need fed. Diapers need changed. Conflicts need resolving. She cannot lose sight of her children—they wouldn’t let her because they continue to break into her day.

The reality of God’s presence and rule over the day was just as apparent for these Christians. He could not be avoided or crowded out. The day was structured so that He continuously broke in and interrupted their daily activities.

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What Are Spiritual Disciplines?

For the next several weeks, I’m going to be doing something new here on the blog. In addition to my usual musings, I will be adding an article once a week on a spiritual discipline. This will be a part of a new and ongoing facet of my blog, which will include some tools and resources of a more practical nature. As with all of my postings, please feel free to use and share them as you see fit.

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What comes to mind when you hear the words “spiritual discipline”?

Some of us cringe, perhaps awaiting a list of things to add to our to-do list, awaiting a long and dry conversation, awaiting the feelings of guilt that we aren’t “doing enough” in our relationship with God.

Some consider regular spiritual disciplines to be for the religious elite—those who really take their faith seriously and are particularly close to the Lord.

And some find them to be the familiar bread and butter of their life as a Christian, as these disciplines have become as regular and expected as showering and brushing their teeth in the morning.

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What I Learned From a Sheep Named Buster: Lessons in Discernment

The sheep hear [the shepherd’s] voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out … and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers. … My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

– John 10:3-5, 27

When I was a child, we lived across the road from a sheep farm. Every spring, fluffy white lambs ran through the fields. Bleating sheep was part of the natural symphony of our country home. (Let me comment here that sheep do not make a delicate baa-ing sound, as some would lead you to believe. Delicate is not even close to the word I would use to describe it. Unfortunately, I cannot perform my best bellowing sheep imitation for you. But I digress…)

During those years, my dad chased many a sheep that had escaped through the old wooden fence around their pasture, and my mom and I would watch him and our neighbor, Bill, heaving on the escapees’ rear-ends to push them back into the safety of the pen. Those bits you hear about sheep being stubborn? We were eyewitnesses to it.

One sheep we will never forget. His name was Buster. I have a photo of my young self, my arms wrapped around him. I’m probably ten or eleven, in the glasses and braces stage of life. When Buster’s mother died during the birthing process, Bill took the small lamb into his home. He was bottle-fed and kept inside more like a dog than a farm animal. And this early experience gave Buster, let’s say, an interesting personality. He was just as stubborn as the others, but his familiarity and perhaps something akin to affection gave him particular audacity. Our poor neighbor was knocked a few too many times onto his elderly hips by Buster’s head butt of greeting or protest. But Buster knew his name—Bill had only to go to the edge of the barn, and yell Buster’s name, and before long, you would see him making his way over the pasture to where we stood. In spite of his stubbornness, he knew his name, and he knew the sound of the one who called him.

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