One Time. (:

One time I joined a blog group. One time I thought I could keep up with life’s craziness. One time I really thought it was all possible. One time was August. That one time in August happened to be before a full course load of 5 classes and a weekly placement took up my academic life. That one time in August also happened to be before I took on a Student Council position at my school and a part time position working for the school. That one time in August also happened to be a time when I signed up with a group of friends to take on an Inductive Bible Study series on Philippians and Colossians. One time it all seemed manageable. So why not throw in a personal study aspect to my fall semester that was bound to be great? I was certain that taking on the study of spiritual disciplines would be a great “dare” as I shared in my first (and so far last) post. I dared myself to do, do more. Too much more? 

I am not sharing the above information to gloat or seek pity about the “full schedule” of my life. It’s all about what I collected on my plate that may have been a little much for the time.

Taking on this study was really beneficial at first. I began with the discipline of prayer and spent daily time before bed praying for people in my life. People from my childhood, people from all over really…Every night I would pray for five different people, wherever they were, whatever they were doing. And I really benefited from this. I began to think outside of the box. How could I pray for someone who I really didn’t know anymore? I really sought to think deeper and explore the power of prayer and the humbling experience it really is. 

Month two was going to be memorization/meditation, and this began with good intentions to focus on a key verse per week that I was going to memorize; but by the end of that first week the novelty seemed to fade away. Since then I have really not centered in on any particular discipline.

I tried to justify my “wandering” away from the spiritual discipline journey, and I really could find no sound argument for myself. “You just bit off more than you could chew” I would tell myself. But did I really? Did I really bite off so much in my life that I couldn’t find time to sit down and even reflect on a discipline? Having time to scroll through my newsfeed on Facebook daily for about 30 minutes seems to be a necessity in my life. If I could spend time on Facebook, then why couldn’t I spend time even digging deeper into God’s word. What makes social media so great that society feels the need to push old school disciplines out of the way? These thoughts have really begun to convict me. Convict me of going with the motions of what others are doing around me. Facebook has become the norm, and if energy and time is put into all of these online endeavors, what is left at the end of the day when I bow my head to pray and thank God for the wonders in my life?

I am really curious to monitor where my time is spent. Who it is spent with, and why I am spending my time doing the things that I am doing. Life is like an hourglass, and the sand is trickling through. 30 minutes on a Facebook newsfeed, or 30 minute face to face conversations with someone who needs Christ. I can tell myself that Facebook helps me keep up with what my friends around the world are doing. But is that really the tool I need? A speaker at a conference once said, “Discipline forms Reflex” In society people are being raised to be disciplined to social media and networking, but I have really reflected and discovered that I don’t want my life to be disciplined to the pattern of this world but to seeking God and his will for my life through any means possible.

Right now, I truly feel convicted in regards to spending time in the word of God. Meditating and Studying it. And although my spiritual discipline journey is quite a bit different than others, I sense the next four or five months to be an underwater diving into Christ and his word for me. I have a friend that I have spoken to about accountability in this area, and I am excited to see God use this discipline in my life. I am grateful for the network of great Christian friends I have around me to help spur me on to complete the race, and to continue to dare myself to do.