Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth

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If those expectations aren't met, I get resentful, and then I have to do a lot of work on myself I could've avoided if I'd just left the thing alone in the first place. While the first few chapters actually taught me a lot, I struggled to to maintain focus through the second half of the book. The outward disciplines of simplicity, solitude, submission, and service help prepare us to make the world a better place.

I think I let disappointment, other people’s responses, or lack of responses, set the bar for my ‘Holy Expectancy. There will be a blog at the start of the week outlining the discipline (what, why and how we can engage with it) and a video at the end of the week sharing how we have found it.

Jesus knew that by his vicarious suffering he could actually absorb all the evil of humanity and so heal it, forgive it, redeem it.

What I mean by that is I am delighted to go a few days or weeks without much interaction in the relationship.You may find yourself nonchalantly reading through his pages, nodding your head, perhaps underlining here and there, your legs stretched across your couch on a lazy afternoon. I particularly needed to see Foster’s discussion of “true service” as not being about “results” or being a means of manipulation (pp. This study of the classic spiritual disciplines includes meditation, prayer, fasting, study, simplicity, solitude, submission, service, confession, worship, guidance and celebration. I would like to be more open to communal expressions of faith; I would like to express more unaffected joy.

In the Celebration of Discipline chapter on meditation, Richard Foster offers five different routes for starting this journey.

God and I've talked about it, He's cool with it, and that will just have to be good enough for sanctimonious straightwads who think they know better. In an era in which many Christians consider Jesus a beloved but remote savior, Willard argues compellingly for the relevance of God to every aspect of our existence. We approach worship because of Jesus and for Jesus but as we do that he meets us, changes us and speaks to us.

Three keys to simplicity are: 1) treat all as a gift from God, 2) ask all to be cared for by God, and 3) make all available to others (p.The book might be a little dense (as many studies are), but it’s well-written and engaging enough for taking it one chapter at a time (which gives time for processing and applying, anyway).