The Value of Spiritual Disciplines

At this point, I can say I have been a runner for decades.

I started in 6th grade when my gym teacher, Mr. Wenig, told me I was fast. So I took the compliment and ran, literally. My dad used the car odometer to mark a mile down the street, conveniently landing at a mailbox anchored in a large, steel bucket. I spent years with my stopwatch, timing my miles and laps around our suburban neighborhood. I found entertainment in the competition with myself and a mental release from the grind. Without initially intending to, I was building a habit and a hobby that would last for decades to come.

Like we can see the effects of a habit across years of practice, spiritual disciplines operate the same way. As consistent running makes the runner stronger and faster, so also a disciplined believer strengthens their faith across time through habits like prayer and Bible reading, and also through the easier to dismiss habits of Scripture memory, fellowship, and fasting. These rhythms of spiritual disciplines matter because habits build, habits sustain, and habits drive.

The Construction

There are 5,280 feet in a mile. This means, if you want to run a mile, you need to run 5,280 feet. There’s no other way to do it. But there are other ways to exercise.

I fear this is the mentality many of us approach Christianity with. We think we can know God however we want, but a foundation of general spirituality will never hold firm. Instead, when we commit to living God’s way and practicing behaviors the Church has held for thousands of years, we surrender Lordship and build upon the Rock. Our foundation initiates our trajectory.

Amid a wealth of wisdom throughout his book, Atomic Habits, James Clear offers encouragement for growth:

You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than your current results . . . the most powerful outcomes are delayed. This is one of the core reasons why it is so hard to build habits that last. People make a few small changes, fail to see a tangible result, and decide to stop (Clear, Atomic Habits, 18, 21).

We can relate. We start reading our Bible for a few days, but by day seven, we feel the same and understand the same as day one. Worse yet, we may have considerably more questions and considerably less confidence. I can’t do this, we think. Or we pray a few times and see no response. I’ll take care of this myself, we decide. Or my (least) favorite, we try fasting but feel cranky, frustrated, and so darn hungry! This is miserable. I’ll fast from something else. Let’s eat!

But we’ll never see results if we don’t commit to endure through the challenging and mundane. Strength accumulates as habits are built over time.

The Anchor

Living in the Midwest, winters always challenge exercise routines. Long, dark days drive us to our beds, and cold, icy temperatures keep us bundled. But when habits are built in the summer, they’re more likely to last through the winter. So long as it was above 20 degrees, I would lace up my shoes, layer up my torso, and hit whatever pavement I could find.

Long, dark winter seasons of life are guaranteed to come and challenge our faith. In these seasons of turmoil, stress, or even significant caregiving demands, we won’t do line-by-line studies of the Bible or commit new verses to memory every week. But what we build in seasons of steadiness will anchor us in seasons of hardship.

In Get Out of Your Head, by Jennie Allen, she writes of a conversation with an astronaut, Shane Kimbrough. A shameless NASA nerd myself, she had my full attention as she explained the strain being in space puts on your body, mind, and relationships. On one particular mission, Shane was unexpectedly delayed. He would stay in space for an extra two months. How did he cope?

He trusted his training (Allen, Get Out of Your Head, 212).

We need the foundation we build upon. We need the training of spiritual disciplines to rely on in the unexpected, unwanted seasons of life. We need the habits we start to be the habits that sustain.

The Wind

We don’t naturally develop speed and endurance while sitting on the couch and scrolling our phones. And we don’t develop speed and endurance because we went for a run one time. In the same way, we don’t naturally develop Christlikeness by living in this world. And we don’t get to know the Lord deeply because we read one page of the Bible. We don’t drift into communion with the Lord, and we don’t drift toward holiness.

If the Lord is the master maintainer of our souls, then we have no hope but to continually come to him for help, for purifying, for unveiling of our eyes to see the sin and pride we don’t even recognize to be there. We like to think we are just fine the way we are, and we’re certainly better than that neighbor down the street, but the Lord sees things we don’t.

Praise him for his sanctifying work when we show up with open hands, ready to receive whatever he has prepared. And praise him for the opportunity to practice spiritual disciplines to work against the natural pull toward the bondage of sin. It’s an honor to walk with the Lord, and the habits we develop help drive our sanctification.

The Reason For It All

As a runner can spend years running and despise every minute of it, we are at risk of mechanical, rote religion if our spiritual disciplines are not ultimately building a love for the Lord. When we look to the one who suffered and died on our behalf, we see our value.

Jesus himself spent a lifetime obeying the Father, attending the synagogue, and reciting Scripture. His first thirty years of life, so normal it is hardly recorded, set him up to obey and endure the darkest and most desperate of circumstances. Though his disciples abandoned him, and the Father denied his plea for the cup to pass, the writer of Hebrews tells us something even greater than habit, greater than discipline, motivated him to endure: 

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. (Heb. 12:1b–3)

Jesus looked to the joy that lay ahead. He looked forward to the honor at the Father’s right hand, the glory that was to come, and the celebration with his people he would redeem.

When we fail, when we lose our way, when we lose sight of the joy that lies ahead for us, we are already covered by the one who took our place, the founder and perfecter of our faith.

As we walk with the Lord, learning to practice and navigate spiritual disciplines, we learn to love him because we are loved by him. For the joy set before us, we endure. We look ahead to the day of redemption. And we look horizontally to the God who is already with us, every step of the way. 

The Grand Total

I always joke, I can’t wait to get to heaven and receive a mileage report from all my years. But how much more exciting and humbling to consider a grand total of hours studying the Word? Of time in prayer? We know nothing for the Lord is ever in vain. He sees every detail. He cares for every piece. He’s worth every moment.