disciplines on Opportunities

A piano sits in a room, gathering dust. It is full of the music of the masters, but in order for such strains to flow from it, fingers must strike the keys… trained fingers, representing endless hours...

If our starting place with God is the radical grace extended through Jesus, then the spiritual disciplines are invitations, not obligations—ways of being with God, not appeasing him.

We can all see God in exceptional things, but it requires the culture of spiritual discipline to see God in every detail.

Preaching Commentary Ancient lighting took  Work I remember watching a movie (I think it was The Mummy ) where the protagonists descended into an underground structure built by the ancients. The ...

We keep company with Jesus by making space for him through a spiritual discipline. Our part is to offer ourselves lovingly and obediently to God. God then works within us doing what he alone can do. O...

In his highly insightful work, Inside Job , Stephen W. Smith provides an important analogy about the importance of spiritually preparing ourselves for the adversity and challenges that come with su...

Many of us try to shove spiritual transformation into the nooks and crannies of a life that is already unmanageable, rather than being willing to arrange our life for what our heart most wants. We thi...

John Ortberg likens the transformative path of Christ to sailing. Sailors can't make the wind show up; the wind has a mind of its own. But that doesn't mean there is nothing for them to do. Sa...

Ancient lighting took  Work I remember watching a movie (I think it was The Mummy ) where the protagonists descended into an underground structure built by the ancients. The structure was completel...

Spirituality is about being ready. All the spiritual disciplines of your life - prayer, study, meditation or ritual, religious vows - are there so you can break through to the eternal. Spirituality is...

The soul’s infinite capacity to desire is the mirror image of God’s infinite capacity to give. . . . The unlimited need of the soul matches the unlimited grace of God.

I cannot transform myself, or anyone else for that matter. What I can do is create the conditions in which spiritual transformation can take place, by developing and maintaining a rhythm of spiritual ...

As we become more intentional about living according to our deepest desires, it becomes increasingly important to notice the effects of technology on our mind, our soul and our relationships.  The ...

A friend often told me about the problems he had getting his son to clean his room. The son would always agree to tidy up, but then wouldn’t follow through. After high school the young man joined the ...

A Digital Silent Retreat This spiritual exercise is from Laura Murray, ordained pastor, spiritual director, and TPW contributor. Laura is sharing a "Digital Silent Retreat" with us. We en...

A spiritual discipline or practice is a way of creating some open and free space in which God can move an speak. For example, the discipline of solitude helps us spend time with God alone and so becom...

Without a balanced approach to spiritual disciplines, we run the risk of cultivating a one-sided spirituality that will disintegrate under pressure from the part of us we have left undeveloped.

The interplay between listening and obedience expresses itself in our lives all the time. Sound has the ability to “command” us, to summon a response in us, forcing us to take notice.  Unlike visual ...

It is precisely in times of spiritual dryness that we must hold on to our spiritual discipline so that we can grow into new intimacy with God.

How do you define what it means to “make a sacrifice?” We say we sacrifice for our family, or sacrifice for our careers. We speak of Jesus sacrificing himself so that we can experience eternal life. A...

Disciplines done for the wrong reasons actually sabotage transformation and numb us toward God and the truth. When we use spiritual practices to gain secondary things like spiritual cachet, success, a...

No voluntary act of spiritual discipline is ever to become an occasion for self-promotion. Otherwise, any value to the act is utterly vitiated.

Brother Lawrence, a 16th-century Carmelite monk, spent his days scrubbing pots and mending shoes. Largely uneducated, he filled his free time writing letters and notes that, after his death, friends g...

Before my mentor, Dallas Willard, passed over to glory, I asked him what he thought about the rapid rise of the Christian spiritual formation movement. He said, “It is a wonderful thing, but my fear i...

There was once a sculptor who worked hard with hammer and chisel on a large block of marble. A little child who was watching him saw nothing more than large and small pieces of stone falling away left...

Grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning. Earning is an attitude. Effort is an action. Grace, you know, does not just have to do with forgiveness of sins alone.

Dolce far niente—“the sweetness of doing nothing.” One of the most powerful soul-training exercises I have ever done is a practice called holy leisure. In simple terms, holy leisure is “doing nothi...

The Spiritual Disciplines are things that we do. We must never lose sight of this fact. It is one thing to talk piously about 'the solitude of the heart,' but if that does not somehow work its...

God’s primary assessment of our lives is not going to be measured by the number of journal entries…The real issue is what kind of people we are becoming. Practices such as reading Scripture and prayin...

Routines dull perceptions. The purpose of a discipline such as fasting is to interrupt the routines that cushion us from the foundational realities, and so sharpen our awareness of the eternal essenti...