Discipline and Spiritual Growth

I wasn't looking for Dallas Willard's The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives when I came across it at Borders.  But two things caught my eye.  First, the cover art, showing a spray of pine needles and a pair of small cones.  Second, an endorsement by Richard J. Foster.  Because I know of and appreciate Foster's books on spiritual life, this was no trivial endorsement.

The concept of discipline is not something that appeals to most people.  We either associate it with self-discipline (can I watch my diet and keep up my exercise), punishment (as in corporal punishment), or perhaps a monk from the olden days who lived on bread and water in the desert and never spoke for 40 years.

Dallas Willard is careful to explain how we have misunderstood discipline and its place in spiritual growth.  Is it easy?  Frequently no.  Is it something that includes pain and sadness?  Again, no.  Take a look at Willard's classification of disciplines.  The "disciplines of abstinence" include solitude, silence, fasting, frugality, chastity, secrecy, and sacrifice.  The "disciplines of engagement" include study, worship, celebration, service, prayer, fellowship, confession, and submission.  Willard backs everything up with sound, Biblical theology.

There is not enough room to go into the details that Willard provides supporting why these disciplines are not only useful but critical for spiritual growth.  I encourage you to read this book as well as Foster's Celebration of Discipline.

But here is one thought-provoking excerpt for you.  Touching on the philosophy of the ancient Greeks and Romans, Willard says that the "inability of classical civilization to produce sufficient people capable of serving as the foundation of good government destroyed the Roman Empire.  Early in human development, races of people are sufficiently under the duress of real needs to exalt the virtues that can make them strong.  But after thy become strong they have no sustaining principle that will allow the further development of virtue to maintain their society.  They lack the tension adequate to maintain character in their citizens.  No stable society can, therefore, be long maintained if it is prosperous.  A transcendental principle and tension is lacking, and that is what is abundantly supplied in the gospel of Jesus Christ and his Kingdom." (pp. 127-128)

I know from personal experience that a busy lifestyle makes it very difficult to find time to practice those forms of discipline which may further my spiritual growth.  I want to say there's not enough hours in the day!  But then Willard stopped me dead in my tracks: "Didn't God give you quite enough time to do what he expects you to do?"  I think maybe God was trying to tell me something.  Within a couple of days I came across this quote from H. Jackson Brown: "Don't say you don't have enough time.  You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Theresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein."  

For further reading:
Foster, Richard J.  Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth.
Foster, Richard J.  Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home.
Foster, Richard J.  Freedom of Simplicity.