Disciplines create space for the retraining of our thoughts, feelings, and will. We see ourselves as we really are, and the games of duplicity are over.
One of my disciplines of service is volunteering at a drop-in center for the homeless. When I began, I had a heart for the homeless. Yet in my times of solitude, I saw that I was sometimes rude to clients—stepping in front of them, interrupting them, even talking down to them. So I confessed these things. Realizing I needed to learn compassion from Jesus, I began to study and meditate on gospel passages I’d barely noticed before.
While serving there, I learn to practice the presence of God as I fold towels and load washers and dryers. I learn to listen to people ramble or complain (submission) and pray for them. I gain community with fellow volunteers who provide me a steady influence of compassion and toughness of purpose. I celebrate with God and others many times when someone holds down a job, finds a reasonable apartment, or kicks a habit. I bond with God by weeping over the deaths of clients and the births of drug-addicted babies.
This service plays out in a discipline of secrecy. Most clients don’t know what I do for a living or that I have a “real job.” Many people in our middle-class town think our volunteers are wasting their time, as do the Christians in town because the center is not a specifically Christian organization. There’s no glory in it—just the wearing of clothes that have been stained by laundry bleach. Yet this place of service has become a place I meet Jesus, who nudges me to love the person in front of me. I can never give as much as I receive there.
TODAY’S EXPERIMENT - What sort of discipline has God been nudging you toward: solitude, silence, community, prayer, confession, service, secrecy, frugality, fasting, study, meditation, worship, or celebration? The way God may suggest you practice it might look very different from how someone else practices it. Ask God what he has in mind for your next step.
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