The Real Power of Spiritual Practices
The Real Power of Spiritual Practices
Attending to the Soul Restores Us
Christian spiritual disciplines do something that can’t be done by anything else. Full stop!
They assist the Holy Spirit of Living God undo the devastating satantic assault on our core, essential human component: the soul. The brunt of the assault of Satan on Creator God’s prized creation, the human person, was not experienced first in the human mind, body, psyche, or community, but in the soul. The soul is our center. It is eternal. Its health and well-being touches every other part of who we are: mind, body, psyche, and community. It is where the image of God was imprinted into us. It is what separates us from all else within creation. It is the sacred sanctuary where God dwells within us and where we experience unmistakable communion with God. Satan’s attack on God’s creation struck at the jugular, the soul. Destroy the soul and all else fails.
What Satan got wrong about God was that God has formed a covenant bond of unbreakable love and loyalty with his prized creation, and through that bond, with all else God created. Rather than floundering in self-pity or making mistep after mistep in confusion, Living God went to work to restore the soul. In a dramatic verbal confrontation, the Creator told the destroyer, “A day is coming when you and your work will be crushed.” (See Genesis 3:15.) Those words, spoken during a time of primeval human history, led to an unbroken chain of history that led relentlessly step-by-step to the saving work of Jesus Christ. His birth, life, death, and resurrection are climatic moments in God crushing the destroyer of our soul and all that God created. The battle between Jesus, the One God sent and Satan, the destroyer, was an epic spiritual battle. We saw visible glimpses of what was happening at a deeper level. The death of Jesus seemed to be convincing proof that the destroyer had won. But the resurrection three days later was convincing proof that the great destroyer had been bested. We are merely observers of this crushing, all-or-nothing battle. Everything hangs in the balance for our souls and our well-being. Recognizing that Jesus is a triumphant victor rather than an impotent victim, the most significant action we can take is to have faith. Our souls do not automatically revive simply because Christ has achieved this victory. We must embrace that historical victory and allow it to become our own. This is accomplished through what the great reformers referred to as faith alone. We place our trust solely in God, solely in Christ, and solely in His death and resurrection. We trust that God has done something for us in Jesus’ death and resurrection that we could never do for ourselves. So we embrace Jesus’ battle and ultimate victory. The great apostle, Paul, said that when we trust that Jesus won the battle and rose from the dead, our soul is revitalized. (See Romans 10:9) This moment of faith bestows upon us the blessing referred to in the Bible as salvation. Our tainted souls are purified, and the wrongdoings that emanated from soul-corruption are forgiven and absolved.We receive a fresh start, a new opportunity to live life with God at our center.
Spiritual disciplines serve as the foundation for our new life with God, much like faith does at the moment of salvation. Prior to the enemy's attack on our souls, we were acutely aware of God's Presence within us. We listened to and comprehended God's voice, receiving His guidance and joyfully moving forward on the path He laid out for us. We viewed others not as rivals but as fellow companions on this journey. However, the assault on our spiritual essence was akin to a catastrophic event that stripped us of our physical senses and abilities. In the aftermath of such an event, neuroscience and rehabilitation efforts work to rewire our minds and restore our lost physical and sensory capabilities. Similarly, Christian spiritual disciplines at a soul-deep level do spiritual rehabilitative work. We learn to recognize once again the voice of God speaking to us. We rediscover how to be led by the Living God. The old patterns of anger, indulgence, and self-promotion—remnants of Satan’s assault on our spiritual core—are gradually replaced by the signs of God’s presence in our lives. While salvation opened the door to this renovation, spiritual disciplines help the Spirit of God turn this potential into a tangible reality.
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THE INDISPENSABLE CHRISTIAN SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINE: GIVING THANKS
Often, when speaking of spiritual disciplines, we immediately think of prayer, scripture reading, silence, solitude, and fasting. They are all important disciplines. The deep renovating work of the Holy Spirit within us will be stalled if we don’t use these practices. But I am more and more convinced there is another discipine that stands above them all: giving thanks.
I am adamant about this because Paul identifies the lack of giving thanks as one of the core reasons the satanic assault against our soul succeeded. Here are Paul’s exact words about that primeval human moment:
Even though [the original humans] knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him. Romans 1:21
Paul’s wrote in the everyday language of first-century Greece. His Greek word for give thanks was eucharisteo. I am more convinced in my own experience that this is the indispensable discipline. Lose this, and the rehabilitative, renovating work of the Holy Spirit grinds to a halt. Lose this, and we become grasping. Lose this, and our hearts fill with fear and distrust. Lose this, we become impatient with God and take matters into our own hands. This is why I’m inviting you to join me in retrieving this old discipline. For me, I’m calling it Eucharist-O.
The rhythm of this practice is simple:
First, a centering word about thankfulness and gratefulness
Second, a centering scripture
Third, an invitation to be still for a few moments before returning to the day’s activities.
The Eucharist-O for Monday, November 11, 2024
First: A Centering Word
What to do: read Eckhart’s sentence three or four times. Pause and breath between each reading. Pay attention to what draws your attention. What are you seeing? What are you believing? What are you doubting?
Next: Read Psalm 103:2
What to do: Read the scripture words three or four times. Read slowly. Pause between reading. Pay attention to what is stirring inside of you. What are you seeing? What are you believing? What are you doubting? What are you feeling? What questions are being raised?
Next: Be Still
What to do: Before returning to your full day, sit in stillness for a few moments. Your soul and imagination were possibly drawn to a word by Herbert or by the author of Hebrews. Perhaps you were drawn to a moment in your life where you regret not being thankful. Maybe you were drawn to a situation that seemed too hard for you. Wherever you were drawn, be there for a few moments. Pay attention to the stirrings deep within, the questions that are forming, the words that want to be spoken. Give your soul the gift of a few moments of stillness to let memories, questions, words, and prayers form.
Before returning to your day, let what is stirring inside become a conversation with God. The conversation, whatever its mood, is a form of prayer and communication with God who has been waiting for this moment all day.