Day 105: Spiritual Discipline

"But reject profane and old wives' fables, and exercise yourself toward godliness.  For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come."  1 Timothy 4:7-8

Here's an excellent metaphor for spirituality.

The two verses seem to make up two important components for spiritual discipline: self-control and practice.  If we take a step backwards to follow the physical metaphor, these two components are diet and exercise.

Dieting is a very interesting field.  I must say that in our modern times, a healthy diet is quite hard to come by.  On the one hand, everything that is being advertised is quite unhealthy, from soda and fast food ads on TV to having all of the processed snacks in eyesight at the supermarkets.  On the other hand, many diets that claim to have health benefits have absolutely no scientific backing or approval.  In fact, even studies in support of fad diets tend to be debunked and/or retracted.  Therefore, dieting consists of resisting the temptations of advertisements and the temptations of fast results.  The only solution is to go to your personal doctor and/or nutritionist to find out what is best for you.  In the same way, spiritual self-control involves quite a bit of resisting of temptations - both of things that will only harm our minds, bodies, and souls and of doctrines that claim to be able to be a quick fix to our problems.  Yet, we have our authority more easily and readily available to us than a doctor (with the long waits and exorbitant costs).  God is just a prayer away, and the word is only a book a way (or even an app!).  We have all that we need, but we need to put these things into practice.

Exercise is quite straightforward.  Do this, and that will happen.  Do cardio, and you will lose weight.  Practice strength training, and you will get stronger.  The best thing about exercise is that you can see the results.  Looking at your physical appearance, you can see when you lose some weight or gain some muscle.  When you are performing everyday tasks (such as walking up stairs or even walking around for certain periods of time) or even when meeting with a personal trainer, it becomes very clear whether you have been doing your exercise or not.  There is no lying.  The same goes for our spirituality.  If we don't put it to practice, it will be quite obvious.  If all we are doing is asking questions and not researching or praying or reading, then we will be left with the blubber of ignorance.  If we don't put the teachings of Christ into practice, we will forget them.  Words are nice, but if they take no root, they are merely noise or scribbles.

Just as a nutritionist or a doctor wants us to get healthier, the same goes for Jesus.  Jesus wants to see us become the best that we can be.  Through his teachings, Jesus shows us how to get into shape.  Until we put them to practice, they will mean nothing to us.

Day 54: God Is Faithful

"No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it."  1 Corinthians 10:13

This is one of my top five favorite verses from the bible.  Reading it in context caused the verse to have extra resonance with me.  If you can, I recommend you committing some verses to memory, at least enough so that you can come across it and speak the words before they appear on the page/screen in your reading.

This verse is very powerful because it comes at the end of a summary of the unfaithfulness of many of the Israelites during the period of time covered in the Pentateuch.  Paul even makes it a point to say that it was some of the Israelites who strayed, not all.

No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man

This statement can hurt a little, because it makes any situation you're in sound quite diminished.  But that's the point.  We like to bring our troubles to our neighbors, while they have just as many issues to deal with as we do.  However, this statement is also there to help us, because we can then look for how other people dealt with our problems.  We can consult our parents, grandparents, priests, teachers, friends, and so many other people.

But God is faithful

If you're struggling with a specific situation, you need to look no further than the bible.  In 1 Corinthians 10, you can find the different temptations that came about.  But, you can also see that God delivered the entire nation of Israel from destruction time and time again.  Read Exodus to see one story of deliverance.  Read Joshua for yet another story.  Read Kings and Chronicles for so many more stories of deliverance.  And, most definitely, read the gospels, any of the four: Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.  You'll understand that God has been faithful to us throughout all our troubles and tests.

[God] will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape

Here is our safeguard.  Times are going to get tough, but they will never get impossible.  Even at the point of death, God is there to save our soul, and when our time comes, God is in control.  Our legacy will last as an example for all those who are struggling.  The great thing about living as Christians is that we have one great escape: the church.  We can go and refresh ourselves with prayers we pray or from those of our fellow Christians.  We can talk to many more faithful people to learn about how great God is.

That you may be able to bear it

Here is an important distinction.  It is one thing to have a way out of our problems.  The easiest way out of any problem is just by doing nothing at all.  We can stay in the comfort of our bed all day unto eternity, allowing our bodies to waste away, let away our minds, our dreams, our talents.  But that's not what God wants.  God is sending us out there into the world as sheep against wolves.  God will guide us through all the difficult parts, but it will all be for our personal growth.  This last clause implies that we weren't able to bear our challenges to begin with.  What's the only way to bear a heavy weight?  Get stronger!  God is guiding us through our difficult times so that we can become stronger beings.

During this Lent, let God guide you through your discipline, whether it's giving up sweets, reading more of the bible, saying a prayer every once in a while, or even just to step foot in church just once this season.  God is faithful, and will guide us through all of our trials.

Day 049: Control

"Your glorying is not good.  Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?  Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened.  For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us."                          1 Corinthians 5:6-7

As some of you may know, one of my favorite cuisines is Indian, and I have tried to learn more recipes over the years.  One recipe that I spent a lot of time on was naan, because it was a great accompaniment to many dishes, alongside being a great bread to eat on its own.

Luckily, in this day and age, we have many videos on YouTube from which we can learn how to do so many things.  I found a good video on how to make naan, and I would follow the recipe exactly.  Except, after the first two or three times of doing it, I noticed that my bread wasn't doing much else than just being flatter than flat.  I had the right amount of yeast and yogurt and flower and other ingredients, but the bread would never puff up into a ball like the video.  My first solution: add more yeast.  I'd learned that yeast is what makes bread rise, so it should have made everything better.  The next time I made the bread, though, I saw that the lumps of dough became biscuits instead: alright in flavor, but way too far away from the correct fluffy texture.

Very frustrated, I decided to watch the video in full once more, but this time making sure that I paid attention to every detail.  I learned that there were two things that I did not do.  The first thing was making sure to activate the yeast in water before adding it to the dough.  The second thing was making sure that I left the dough to rise on its own for a few hours.  The next batch of naan I made was exactly what I'd had in the restaurants: fluffy, hollow, and delicious.

Whenever I come across passages from the bible about dough and leavening, they bring me back to my experience of learning how to make naan.  It took me a while to learn that a very little bit of yeast can cause bread to puff up to such a great size.  Paul warns that the same thing happens when we allow sin to grow within us.  Sure, we can create anecdotes of people who live in so much sin that they no longer seem to be living life, such as the dough that has too much leavening in it.  But, we can also start to look at our own lives, where we think that we can start ignoring our own problems.  It's just a white lie.  It's just a dollar from her pocket.  It's just a fantasy.  Then it grows.  The small bit of leavening of sinful nature can overtake us until we are filled with so much sin that we are about to burst.

How do we fix this then?  We first need try to think of ourselves as the ones who prepare the dough, for how else can we purge out the leavening of malice?  Then we need to know that there are so many tempting ingredients in our pantry, but God is also there with us, offering to demonstrate what to do. The lumps of dough are our lives, but they do not have to be the final product.  God gives us many chances to get it right, but it is only by our own efforts that we can truly receive what God wants to give us.

Service

"If any want to be my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me." (Luke 9:23)
Jesus is very clear.  It will be hard work. There will be times that you are going in the opposite direction as everybody else.  There will be times that a crowd and a parade will be headed in a different direction than you who follow Jesus.  But there will be times of grace, love, joy, and happiness, for God is the source of all these things.