If you have been following me on Facebook or Twitter, you might be
aware that I have been really focused in on physical discipline. I think the
Christian life can be so blessed and even improved if we simply listen to what
God says to us about our own bodies. Moreover, over the last year or so, I have
found that allowing God to mold me physically has taught me much about how to
grow spiritually. As we all know, exercise is a huge part of healthy living for
the body, but, for a moment, I do not want to talk about exercise as a physical
discipline, but as a spiritual discipline. Spiritual exercise looks a bit different than lifting heavy weights, but often times it is just as difficult. The exercise of restraint, not allowing ourselves to give into temptation is, in my mind, the spiritual equivalency to picking up those dumbbells. It is truly resistance training, is it not?
Before we talk too much about exercise, I want to speak briefly to
exercise’s wonderful counterpart, diet. Proper exercise is really not all that
great without proper diet. Now, I am not talking about fad diets; I am talking
about lifestyle diet, what we choose to eat, day-in and day-out. We are all on
a diet of some sort. Some are simply better than others, and some are just flat
out weird. Just as our bodies need sustenance, our spirit requires a type of
food as well. Once again, some spiritual diets are better for our souls than
others, and some are just plain weird.
The Word of God has proved to be a great diet for the soul, but just
as with physical food, if we do not exercise, the food we consume is of little
use, and it ends up burdening us instead of fueling us. If we eat of the Word,
but we do not allow it to energize our spirit’s activity, its exercises, then
we are wasting the knowledge God has given. It will begin to pile up and fester
as our souls are burdened with knowing what we ought to do, but are not doing.
Just as physical sloth can produce guilt, so too can spiritual sloth produce
guilt. I mention all this about diet to show the intricate relationship that it
shares with exercise. We will return to the need to exercise momentarily, but the real reason I bring up spiritual food is this: If we do not fuel
our souls, we should not think we can exercise them properly. The two go hand in
hand. If you are not eating properly from the Bread of Life and The Word of God, don’t expect to have a joyful soul, even if you try to exercise it often
through spiritual disciplines such as prayer, worship, liturgy, study, contemplation, sharing, and taking care of the needy. Besides the disciplines, and as I mentioned upfront, resisting temptation is also exercise and true training for our spirit. No matter what the activity is for the spirit, the truth of the matter is that spiritual
practice requires spiritual food.
Now, back to exercising our spirit. When we think of our sanctification,
that is our becoming more and more Christ-like, we often think of our role in
very passive terms, and certainly we should. God is the one who sanctifies for
sure, but that is not an excuse to not involve ourselves in the strengthening
of our souls. The fact is, no matter how odd it seems, God calls us to work
with Him, even though we are faulty and often disappointing. We have a role in
our own sanctification. Paul tells us: “Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have
always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence,
work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God which works
in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Phil 2:12,13). Paul
demonstrates this peculiar relationship. As Mr. Wesley put it: “God works, therefore you
must work.” This is not works righteousness. It is a
grace-fueled offer to walk with God and to be apart of His work.
Why must I work? With little effort we can discover that our wills are
weak, even the Christian’s will. This is seen every time we do those things we
know we ought not to do. Weakness of Will presents itself in such mundane ways
that we often do not see the insidious problem until it is too late. For
example, we know that we should not eat too much, but we do it anyway. We know
we should get enough sleep, but we stay up on the computer anyway. We know we
should read the Bible, but we watch TV instead. We know those things we should
do produce life, and those things we shouldn’t do produce illness and death,
but we are weak and often do those things we know good and well are detrimental
to our being, even when we want to do what is good.
When we set our minds on a disciplined
life, and we pray for the grace to pursue the good, we are praying for God to
orient our hearts on His will. God then tells us that His word is life (John
6:63). Just as simply wanting to be physically fit is worthless unless we eat
properly, so too must we discipline ourselves to eat of His Words, lest we
never obtain the spiritual health we seek. Furthermore, He tells us that those that want good spiritual
health must live it out, to discipline ourselves. Just as our muscles grow
stronger and stronger as we exercise the body, so too does our spirit transform
as we live a disciplined life.
