Spiritual Discipline

This weekend my church had our biannual "Spiritual Formation Institute." Dr. Don Whitney (www.BiblicalSpirituality.com) taught on spiritual disciplines, so I thought I would share some of what I learned. I think I will divide it into a couple different posts on the different subjects we discussed. I am hoping this will help me remember these things better and also be a means of accountability.

The first two sessions were on prayer and meditation, followed by sessions on fasting, silence and solitude, journalling and learning. In the session on prayer, Dr. Whitney explained a common problem in the Christian's prayer life: "We pray the same old thing about the same old things." The latter part is not the problem because obviously we are going to pray about the "same old things" for these are the things about which we are most concerned (family, future, church/ministry, current crisis, etc.) The problem, he said, is that we pray about these things in the same way, and often we lose focus or wander from praying to worrying or day dreaming. Dr. Whitney stressed the fact that the solution to this problem (and other problems dealt with during the conference) must be a simple one because all Christians are called to pray and, therfore, all Christians must be able to pray. Here is his solution: Pray through Scripture. Praying throught Scripture allows us to use God's inspired word in our prayers, and we have fresh prayers everyday. Dr. Whitney recommended praying through the Psalms. Read through a Psalm and pray whatever comes to your mind. Praying this way gives purpose to your prayers, and using the Psalms is helpful because through them God has revealed to us how he wants us to praise him.

I found this session particularly beneficial because I do often lose focus when I am praying. I usually write down my prayers because it seems to be the only way I can not either fall asleep or get distracted. I do think that writing prayers down helps because I see God's kindness in any growth I have or in the way He answers prayers (Dr. Whitney talked about writing prayers in the session on journalling so I will probably get to that in a later post.) I hope praying through Scripture will be a method that will help me have a more focused and God-centered prayer time.

Here is some Scriptural evidence for praying Scripture:
Matt. 27:46
Acts 4: 23-26

"For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, "Abba, Father!" The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs- heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him." Romans 8:15-17