My Dream about Spiritual Disciplines . . . and Why It’s Tough to Get There

I have a dream about spiritual disciplines – the topic of the last several weeks’ posts. In the first post in the series, I wrote about the importance of the disciplines, beginning with, “They slow us down and put us in a position to listen to God.” Our spiritual disciplines simply matter if we want to walk closely with God.  

Here’s my dream, though. My dream is that we will reach a day when the disciplines are no longer disciplines. Let me explain.  

Donald Whitney, who has written much and taught for years about spiritual disciplines, reminds us of Paul’s words to Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:7: “Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness” (NASB). Those words teach us that the goal of discipline is godliness—so, the disciplines matter for that reason. In fact, Whitney says that spiritual disciplines are “the scriptural ways Christians discipline themselves in obedience to this verse.”i 

Discipline. The word itself speaks of intentionality, of hard work, of consistency, and of order. It assumes that we believers must diligently strive to do the disciplines, fighting hard against any distraction—including demonic diversion—that might keep us from spending time with God. Doing the disciplines demands discipline—and all of that is accurate.  

You see, my concern is not so much that we must be disciplined to do the disciplines. My concern is the way we consider them in terms of our walk with God. It is that we see them as the negative side of discipline: something we must do rather than something we love to do. My dream, as I said earlier, is for a day when we so deeply want to be with God that doing the “disciplines” requires no discipline at all; instead, doing them is just natural. They will have become part of our DNA.  

I dream of the day:  

• When we want to read the word because we just want to hear from God.  

  
  

• When we want to pray because we can’t imagine going through the day without talking to Him—because love makes you want to talk with the one you love.  

  
  

• When we want to fast because we long for God more than anything, including food or any other good thing that could turn our attention elsewhere.   

  
  

• When we want to journal because we want others beyond us to know what God has done in our lives; we want next generations to hear about our adventure with God.  

• When we want silence and solitude because we want to hear God clearly to make certain we are walking in His footsteps.  

  
  

• When we want to do evangelism because we desperately want others to know about Jesus. After all, He’s meant the world to us.   

  
  

• When we want to invest in others because someone else invested in us to show us how to walk with Jesus. We want the next generation to disciple the generation following them because we want them to love Jesus.   

  
  

I trust you get my point. I long for the day when believers so love God that spending regular time with Him makes sense. I look forward to the time when these disciplines become DNA, when finding time to be with God is as natural as my spending time with my wife. 

I realize that Don Whitney and others likely agree with me, and their use of the word “disciplines” does not imply any sense of drudgery in doing spiritual disciplines. They simply know the significance of being with their Creator and Redeemer—and they take delight in daily listening to God through His Word or speaking to Him through prayer. That would be my dream — but still, we must discipline ourselves to do these things. Why is that the case? 

1. We hear the word, “discipline” in a negative way. Even my usage of the term in the first part of this post leans in that direction in some ways. I suspect that others hear “discipline” as “drudgery”—and that perception keeps them from engaging God through the disciplines with delight. We need to re-think “discipline.” 

   
   

2. No one has taught us how to do the spiritual disciplines. Pastors and small group leaders have told us about the significance of the disciplines, but they often haven’t given us much training in those same disciplines. Consequently, we “ride the roller coaster” of disciplines; that is, sometimes we’re heading “up,” but at other times, we’re headed down. Sometimes, we can be both in the same week. We need discipline.  

   
   

3. We don’t have role models. I’m privileged to have two brothers who model the disciplines for me, but I realize my story is an anomaly. Many believers have no one who has modeled for them what it means to be with God. Having no role model often leads to having no ongoing practice of the disciplines. 

   
   

4. We haven’t always seen our relationship with Jesus as genuinely a relationship. A real relationship assumes a love for being together, for talking often, for listening attentively, for prioritizing friendship time, and for growing personally through the relationship. Sometimes, though, believers have a relationship with God that is not deep nor intentional—and spiritual disciplines are just an “add on” to their Christian walk. 

5. We’ve tried doing the disciplines before, but failed to remain disciplined. That was certainly my story for years, as I described in last week’s post. When you try to do spiritual disciplines but fail often enough, you just give up trying. If those cases, we truly do need discipline to start again. 

   
   

If you’re still trying to discipline yourself to do your spiritual disciplines, which of the reasons above—if any—describes why you need the discipline? Whatever your reason might be, I pray that this series of posts has been helpful to you as you seek to develop disciplines that become DNA for you.