What Happens in Practicing a Spiritual Discipline?
In my practice of spiritual disciplines, some days all I can muster is to simply show up to the possibility of a God-connection. So, I come as I am – weary, distracted, busy-minded, giddy, resentful or tender hearted – it does not matter. I simply come. And this is the most elemental offering where I begin by identifying a specific time and place to do so. This need not be a room or a corner just for candlelight prayer and Bible reading. The time and place may be a morning walk through the neighborhood, or a coffeeshop bustling with activity where one senses God present in the living, breathing hum of the world.
Each of us find our best time and the best place to offer ourselves to this Divine work. Wherever and how ever we are, we come, day by day, week by week, months turn to years and years to decades of continually and intentionally turning the heart towards God, sometimes hearing or sensing the sacred sounds of the soul, other days recognizing the longing in the silence that may feel like a void or a deep hunger.
What happens when I practice a spiritual discipline? Sometimes nothing perceptibly. Such days ask that I simply trust that something is happening slowly but surely in the accumulation of faithful waiting. Just as a single stepping stone may be a part of the path that leads to a specific destination, the stone itself may not offer any new revelation but it leads to the next step, to a closer connection than the day before.
But sometimes what happens in coming to a spiritual discipline is life-changing. These are moments when faith becomes clarity of purpose, when thoughts become action, where sufferings or elations both lead to a welcoming peace, or the chaos disperses leaving in its place enlightened wisdom that for the path ahead. Then I know that I have been in the dwelling place of God found within my own body, mind, and spirit.
“The word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe.” (Deuteronomy 30:14).
Take time to explore your own spiritual awakening, of knowing God, whether it is simply a seed of an idea, a longing, or a possibility that there may be more to this invitation than what you first believed. Write about it in your journal or share it with a friend or your spiritual director.
