Retreating from discipline

Over the next month I will be experiencing 2 retreats: An organization one and a personal one. Why? Well my organization leaders decided that it's important for us all to go on a retreat. Isn't that why we do things? Someone else decides what is a good idea spiritually? Oh and my personal retreat? I'm doing that because a guy wrote about how important that is for spiritual growth. Again, I'm following. I've often looked at leaders like that plan these things and longed to be like them, with all their depth and wisdom.

I've realised that the core difference between many of the spiritual leaders that I look up to and myself, is discipline. In my case, the lack of discipline. I've realised I am so much a product of my generation. A product of the information age. The technology age. The age of instant gratification. I long to achieve certain spiritual progress, but I'm unwilling to exercise the discipline to get me there.

How do you develop discipline? Well as an adult I'm now wishing I'd worked harder at discipline when I was a child. It's much easier to develop these character traits as a child that as an adult. The cartoon above is funny, but actually maybe it's a good start. Start small and work at one small thing until it becomes habitual. Then grow that habit by extending the time, pushing the limits, until the discipline becomes second nature. It's harder than it sounds!

I hope that on these 2 enforced retreats I'll be able, in some small way, to start developing good discipline in my life.

Reflections on God52

I must admit I've fallen behind on the God52 weekly posts and exercises. This has partly to do with recent events in my personal life and partly with my own procrastination and has lead me to think about the God52 process and it's impact on me, personally.

I think the idea is great! Each week a new discipline being challenged. A new focus for spiritual development. Behind the idea is the feeling that we are falling short in certain spiritual disciplines and so we need to challenge ourselves to improve them.

This, however, is where God52 starts failing for me. I find myself approaching the exercises as a sort of check list; Give extravagantly? check; Focused prayer? check; 1 hour meditation? check. Been there, done that. What it isn't doing is helping me to develop these into disciplines that I practice every day. Once I've achieved a task I move on to the next week's challenge and forget about what I learned in the week before. I certainly have not practiced any previous week's challenge consistently this year!

So I've decided to not follow every challenge every week. I will rather choose specific challenges to work towards developing into disciplines. This week's challenge is a great example for me to start on - meditation. Sitting still for 1 hour just focussing on God. Not praying. Not singing. Not listening to worship music or podcast sermons. Just sitting quietly. It's a massive challenge for me; someone who is always multitasking at least 10 things in my head while working on 5 things at work, but I can see the value of meditation and I can see how it's missing in my daily life.

So God52 is great. I'll keep checking up on what each challenge is for each week because you never know how it might challenge you, but personally I'm going to be picking just a few challenges to work on, so as to develop them into disciplines.