Thought #1: It really, really bothers me that I can't paste things from a word document into this box ...
There's only room for one thought; and I don't think anyone cares anyway! So enjoy, or don't ... up to you all!
Willard highlighted the face that even our Lord, Jesus, "learned" from His Father ... He was a student of the disciplines. While I long to know a variety of worldly disciplines, I often prefer to skip the learning part of it if at all possible. I always joke that "I hate a challenge;" but, it's not a joke, really ... I do. If it doesn't come naturally, I don't want to try. If practice is what's going to make it perfect, I'd rather find something else I'm "perfect" at immediately than "waste" my time learning the present task at hand. If there are instructions or lengthy practices involved, I don't find it worth my time. Essentially, I am repelled by tasks that require discipline ... and, I think this includes being a Christian. I desire the immediacy, the experience, the promises, the words ... yet without mastering the disciplines that characterize me as a partaker of such things ... without dwelling in the disciplines that are located within the very presence of God, who is, essentially, the very One who will provide the very things I'm seeking. After all, as Willard says, this (a life of discipline) is where that easy yoke is located; this is where our burden becomes light. The spiritual disciplines are gifts; I treat them as burdens ... as items on my spiritual checklist: anamolies to the occurences of daily life; things to be remembered ... things that normally wouldn't cross my mind. Brusing my teeth comes more naturally to me than these disciplines. Brushing my teeth never makes my checklist ... Everything that matters, everything that is important is protected and governed by disciplines. Why do I act as if protecting my teeth with the discipline of brushing them is more important than protecting my life with the spiritual disciplines?
2 comments:
Okay...so why do you? That was my question, too. Why do view them as burdens? (I often do too).
Hmm ... that's a good question. I'm really not sure. I thought though: "what makes something a 'burden?'" I think to me a burden is something that #1: I have to do; and #2: I don't enjoy doing. The second is the part that is unfortunate. If there were real intimacy, I would enjoy the disciplines.
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