Spiritual Disciplines

Having established what life, and spiritual life is about, Willard ventures to define “spiritual disciplines.” There’s a lot of suspicion in some circles today, about the term. Many connect it with the asceticism of the Middle Ages or with the techniques of modern mysticism. Neither agrees with the sense in which Willard uses it.

He defines spiritual disciplines as “activities of mind and body purposefully undertaken, to bring our personality and total being into effective cooperation with the divine order. They enable us more and more to live in a power that is strictly speaking, beyond us, deriving from the spiritual realm itself, as we ‘yield ourselves to God, as those that are alive from the dead, and our members as instruments of righteousness unto God’ as Romans 6:13 puts it” (The Spirit of the Disciplines, 68).

Spiritual disciplines are first of all “activities of mind and body”. They include such things as meditating, reading, praying, fasting, serving. These are all distinct human activities which, in the case of nurturing spiritual life, are nevertheless “purposefully undertaken.” That is to say, they are undertaken deliberately and intentionally for the purpose of bringing us into “effective cooperation with the divine order.” I might choose to forgo eating for a day or two for medicinal purposes. When I do that, the “fasting” involved is not a spiritual discipline but a medical remedy. However, when I purposefully forgo eating to allow deepened concentration upon God, and for the development of a greater awareness of dependence upon him, it becomes an activity that is “purposefully” undertaken to help bring me into alignment with God’s kingdom. It becomes a “discipline” that I consciously engage in to orientate my whole personality toward the spiritual realm. That’s what a spiritual discipline is.

The extent of our integration into the spiritual kingdom of God, Willard argues, depends largely on our use of disciplines that enable us to interact with it. “Once the individual has through divine initiative become alive to God and his kingdom,” he writes, “the extent of integration of his or her total being into that Kingdom order significantly depends upon the individual’s initiative” (ibid, 68). God is the one who graciously awakens us and leads us into his kingdom. But once “born from above” and brought into his family, our life and growth in his kingdom depend to a large degree on our actions. These disciplines cannot produce the spiritual blessing that comes from God alone, but they dispose us to it, or position us where we can receive it. In that sense they are integral to a life of active, cooperative interaction with the kingdom of God.

The Dynamic of Spiritual Life

The term “spiritual life” is one that we use often but find hard to define. At least that’s true of most of us.

Willard has helped me in this regard. Building on his discussion of the existence of an ordered spiritual realm, and a spiritual kingdom that centres in God himself, Willard defines spiritual life in terms of interaction with that realm. “A ‘spiritual life’”, he writes “consists in that range of activities in which people cooperatively interact with God – and with the spiritual order deriving from God’s personality and action” (The Spirit of the Disciplines, 67).

A spiritual life, he says, is a life with specific activities – indeed, a “range” of activities. These are activities in which we “cooperatively interact with God.” This is an important statement. Fundamentally spiritual life is about “interacting with God.” It is not about mystical contact with God, nor absorption into his being. It is about “interacting” with him. From the Bible that means such things as trusting him, seeking him, asking him, praising him. These are all intelligent human relational activities – the sorts of things we do in interaction with other people.

Then there is this other feature Willard mentions, namely, “cooperative” interaction. Spiritual life is not blind, unresponsive, or ritualistic. It is the activity of one person with Another, and in a spirit of cooperativeness. When we interact with God we do so in reverence for his majesty, in submissiveness to his law, in devotion to his purposes.

And what’s the outcome of this? There arises a “new overall quality of human existence with corresponding new powers” (ibid, 67). As we approach God and open our lives to him, he comes to live within us, imbuing us with the power of his own life. "A person is a 'spiritual person'" Willard continues, "to the degree that his or her life is correctly integrated into and dominated by God's spiritual kingdom" (ibid, 67). That’s what spiritual life is really about.

"The Missing Nutriment"

I ended the last post quoting Willard saying that appropriate relation to the spiritual Kingdom of God is the “missing nutriment” in the human system (The Spirit of the Disciplines, 65). He had been saying that the Bible teaches there is an ordered spiritual realm that centres in God, who is himself “spirit”, and that we as humans were made to interact with that realm. The present human condition, however, testifies that something is missing from our existence – that there is a “nutriment”, as it were, that is lacking. And that nutriment, Willard claims, is “appropriate relation to the spiritual Kingdom of God.”

We were made, he contends, with spiritual capacities intended to “feed” on the spiritual Kingdom of God. “When the human organism,” he writes, “is brought into a willing, personal relationship with the spiritual Kingdom of God, ‘sucking in orderliness’ from that particular part of the human environment, it becomes pervasively transformed, as a cornstalk in drought is transformed by the onset of drenching rain – the contact with the water transforms the plant inwardly and then extends it outwardly... In the same way, people are transformed by contact with God” (ibid, 65).

That’s how we were made to live, but it is not the way we do now – at least, not until God restores us to relationship with himself. The “death” that came upon Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden after eaten the forbidden fruit, was first of all a death to God and to his spiritual kingdom. “Adam and Eve did not cease to be ‘living beings’” Willard writes. “But they nevertheless died, as God said they would. They ceased to relate and function in harmony with that spiritual reality that is at the foundation of all things and of whose glory the universe is an expression. They were dead to God” (ibid, 66).

That’s where we are today, and why human life generally is so stunted and deformed. Apart from Christ, we are unable to live the life that we were made to live. Purposeful, appropriate interaction with the spiritual kingdom of God is the nutriment that is missing from the lives of most men and women who live on earth.

Spiritual Life

Living beings, we noted last time, are active and interactive beings. They possess an inner power, the specific metaphysical nature of which is beyond our ability to conceive, that animates them. It enables cells to throb with activity, minds to teem with electrical impulses, hands, arms and legs to move. And more than that, it enables living creatures of all kinds to interact with their environment to influence it and draw from it what they need for continued existence.

When we think of the environment in which we exist, we automatically think of the earth we walk on, the air we breathe, the houses we live in and so on. As living beings we are able to act toward these things, and interact with them, gaining from them what we need to survive and function. But there is more than the visible world of material reality to our environment. At least, that’s what we Christians believe. On the basis of the Bible we hold that there is a realm of spiritual reality as well – a realm at the centre of which is the self-existent God, a spirit who is in himself the source of everything else that exists.

Willard defines “spirit” as “unembodied personal power” (The Spirit of the Disciplines, 64). Again he thinks of spiritual existence first of all in terms of “power”. Next, it is “personal power” – that is, power associated with “personhood.” Gravity might be thought of as a power, in that it exerts a force upon objects and causes them to move. But it is not a “personal” power – that is, one possessing the properties of personhood. Gravity doesn’t think, or feel, or choose. It is simply there – a created force that operates without reason or conscious thought. Not so a “spiritual” being. A “spirit” – be it divine, human or angelic – is a personal power.

But thirdly, it is an “unembodied” personal power. At least that’s true of “spirit” in its essential form. We humans are “embodied spiritual beings” in that we possess a spirit, but that spirit exists in an embodied form (at least while we are ‘alive’). “Raw spirit”, if I may speak in those terms, is “unembodied personal power.”

What makes this so important for Willard is that it introduces into our human environment a specific domain with which we can interact. God has made us not only physical beings, capable of interaction with the material world about us. He has also made us spiritual beings, able to interact with the realm of “unembodied personal power” that centres in him. That’s what sets us off from animals and other lower forms of life. What is more, it is what ultimately provides the direction and meaning our lives need. We were made to know the invisible God and interact with him.

This is how Willard puts this: “The biblical conception of the spiritual is that of an ordered realm of personal power founded in God who is himself spirit and not a localizable physical body... the biblical worldview also regards the spiritual as a realm fundamental to the existence and behaviour or all natural or physical reality (see specially John 1:1-14; Col. 1:17; Heb. 1:2; 11:3)... From a biblical perspective there can be no doubt that it is the appropriate relation to the spiritual Kingdom of God that is the ‘missing nutriment’ in the human system” (ibid, 64-5).

The Nature of Life

The idea of being made to “live” in God presents us with a field for deeper reflection – namely, on the nature of life.

It’s at points like this that I find Willard so helpful. As a philosopher he is used to probing the depths of topics. He’s not content to use a term like “live” or “life” without trying to get to the bottom of what it means. Once there, he is in a better position to work out its implications for practical existence. He is not a mere theorist, interested only in ideas. On the contrary, he is intensely practical, but concerned that practice should be well anchored on a stable foundation.

Take this matter of “life.” One of Willard’s concerns is that so much of modern Christianity is more concerned about preparing us to die than it is for helping us live. The Gospel, he contends, is a gospel of “life.” That’s what makes an understanding of what life really is so important.

Willard devotes an entire chapter to the nature of life in his book The Spirit of the Disciplines. His basic contention is that life “is always and everywhere an inner power to relate to other things in certain specific ways” (p. 57). “The living thing,” he continues, “has an inherent power that contacts what is beyond it, drawing from this ‘beyond’ to enhance and extend its own being and influence.” Once more, “... we see life – whatever its ultimate metaphysical nature and explanation – to be the ability to contact and selectively take in from the surroundings whatever supports its own survival, extension, and advancement” (ibid).

There are several things worth noting in these definitions. The first is that Willard is not trying to give an absolute explanation of the “ultimate metaphysical nature and explanation” of life. He is rather describing what it looks like – or how it manifests itself.

In that regard he speaks of it as an “inner power” within a living being. We readily note that’s true. A living person has a source of power within themselves that activates them. We are not like an appliance which only comes to life when electricity is turned on – when electrical current from an exterior power source activates it. The source of power in a living being is within itself. That’s true of a plant, an animal, and most certainly true of us. When a person dies, there is a force within that person, a power of some kind that ceases to exist and function. The hands that once moved become immobile. The cells that once throbbed with activity are now stilled. The inner power that causes that person to act no longer exists.

That leads to a third observation regarding Willard’s understanding of life. The inner power that animates a living creature enables it to “relate to other things in certain specific ways”. In particular, he notes, they relate to other things in order to derive what they need for “survival, extension and advancement.” Living things are not self-existent. They depend on things outside of themselves, and draw from these to continue and advance their own existence. A plant extends its roots into the soil to draw up the water and mineral nutrients that it needs for survival. Animals eat grass and herbs to gain what they need to survive. We humans do likewise. More than that, we interact with our environment through powers of understanding, reason and choice in order to further our interests and existence. Our capacities as humans to interact with our world around us are enormous, and reflect God’s purpose that we should rule the earth.

Together these ideas lead us to be able to say that “living” beings are those possessing an inner power that enables them to act and interact. That’s the basic nature of life. As living beings we are active and interactive beings. We humans have been made in such a way that our “action” includes not only the processes of metabolism, respiration and reproduction, but also powers of thought, understanding, self-consciousness, motion and creativity. Plants don’t possess all these powers, but we do.

Where is all this leading? The idea that we are made for action and interaction with the environment in which we are placed lays the foundation for considering the specifically spiritual dimension of life. More about that next time.

Living in Him

Closely allied to the thought of making a pilgrimage into the life and heart of God discussed in the last posting is the idea that God wants us to live in him. Willard makes this point in The Divine Conspiracy as well. "God's desire for us," he writes, "is that we should live in him" (p. 18).

This is a massive statement that we mustn't hurry over. One doesn't have to read Willard for long to discover that he doesn't waste words or use them lightly. When he makes a statement like this, simple though it is, he is expressing a profound idea.

What does Willard mean when he says God wants us to "live in him"? We commonly speak of people living in a certain place. We, (my wife Nola and son John and I), live in Wyndham. When we speak in this way we mean that we are located in Wyndham, have our home there, eat and sleep there, worship there, play our sport there, and do our work from there. Wyndham is the sphere in which our life functions are exercised - at least, for the most part.

This helps us to understand what it means to "live in God." It means to make him the environment, the context, the atmosphere in which we exist. It means that all our thinking, decision-making, acting, and planning takes place in the presence of God, with reference to him, and in dependence upon him. Jesus lived "in" his Father in that sense. There was nothing he did that didn't have reference to his Father. He "lived and moved and had his being in him" (Acts 17:28).

A second example comes to mind. We say that a fish "lives in the sea". By that we mean that the sea is its habitat, its natural environment for function, the region in which it exists and performs its functions of life. According to Willard, God desires that we have that kind of relationship with him.

If that is true - and I believe that it is - it is an incredible idea. God's desire for us is not just that we know about him, and give him a portion of our time and money. He wants us to make him the sphere of our existence. To use another picture from life, he wants us to put our roots in him and draw our life from him. That's how much he loves us. Indeed, as Willard writes, "That shows what, in his heart of hearts, God is really like - indeed, what reality is really like. In its deepest nature and meaning, our universe is a community of boundless and totally competent love" (p. 18).

A Pilgrimage

Early in his book The Divine Conspiracy, Willard makes the comment, "We are invited to make a pilgrimage - into the heart and life of God" (p. 17).

The first time or two I read this statement I glossed over it. But last week it gripped me, and I spent time thinking and praying about it. I began by reflecting on the word ""pilgrimage." In fact, I took down my dictionary and checked the meaning of the word. It confirmed what I already knew - a pilgrimage is a journey to a shrine or a holy place. I found that a helpful starting place for reflection.

Normally we don't associate a "pilgrimage" with a person but with a place. We think of people making pilgrimages to Mecca, to the Vatican, or to one of the many shrines dedicated to Mary throughout the world. But the thought of making a journey "into the heart and mind of God" - that's new. Is it right to think of our relationship with God in these terms?

It has become very popular today to think of the spiritual life as a journey. A journey has a beginning, a destination, and takes place through a series of stages. Our spiritual lives are like that. They have a beginning, they travel along a path, and they are headed to a destination.

But can they be thought of as a "journey into the life and heart of God"? Basically our spiritual life is a journey toward God. Knowing him, becoming like him, doing his will, and ultimately being in his presence, lies at the heart of Christian spiritual life. In reconciling us and calling us to himself, God calls us into a relationship that is personal, real, and ultimately, incredibly intimate. He wants us to know him, to enjoy him, to experience his love and grace. More than that, he wants us to participate with him in his eternal kingdom purposes. And he wants us to open our hearts wide to him.

This kind of relational interaction can be thought of in terms of coming to know his mind and heart. God hasn't hidden himself from us; quite the opposite, he has made himself know magnificently. One only has to think of passages in the Bible such as Hosea 11 to know that. "When Israel was a child, I loved him," says the Lord through the prophet Hosea. "I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love; I lifted the yoke from their neck and bent down to feed them" (vv. 1, 4). Again, "How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel... My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is roused" (v. 8).

Here God is unveiling his heart to his people Israel - and to us today. He is telling us that he loves us deeply and desires our love in return. He wants us to enter into a covenant of love with him, much as a bride does with her husband when she marries. He is not, in other words, calling us to live at a great distance from him without any personal acquaintance with him. He spreads his arms wide, as it were, and bids us live with him in the intimacy of a tender love relationship.

Viewed in this way, Willard's words are not out of place. God does set before humankind everywhere an invitation to make a journey - a journey toward him, and into intimate participation in his life and purposes.  It's astonishing that this should be so.