Spiritual Discipline

God is so good! He created us with a spirit, and a spirit in his likeness for that matter. In this class we are taking a closer look at our spiritual formation and concepts of spirituality. When God made us he gave us ways to commune with him. This allows us to have a relationship with him, where we are able to learn more about and grow closer to him. In an essence God gave us spiritual disciplines so that we are able grow spiritually. In this paper we are going to go over what a spiritual discipline entail and what it means to me, and my personal experience with spiritual disciplines. Spiritual disciplines are practices that promote spiritual growth. They are habits of devotion and experiential Christianity. Through out this quad we have …show more content…
Personal practices impact your relationship with God. An example of this might be God speaking to you in a devotional time. While communal practices are about building each other up and building the church up. An example of this is group prayer or studies. We were able to do both of these in our class practices. The two that had the greatest influence on me were Holy Listening, and Lectino Divina. In holy listening we were posed a question and one person would talk about it to the group. During that time the focus is on the person talking. Following there would be time for silence, reflection, prayer, and receptiveness. Then we would continue to do this around the group until everyone had gone. I loved this discipline because focus wasn’t about me, it was about others and God. It made me realize how easy it was to make prayer selfish and about myself, which I fell like I had been doing. I realized God is not revolving around me and my life, I am revolving around him along with my brothers and sisters in Christ. The honest priority of everyone in the group was God. It was opening and I had a new understanding. We weren’t sitting in chapel, no one was preaching at us, we were sitting in silence and I was able to understand God in a deeper way. The other practiced I enjoyed was Lectino Divina which similarly also had a lot of silence and sitting in the presence of God but more personal. We would sit while scripture was read to us. The first time to just soak it in, the next time to listen to what God had for us, then continuing to read with reflection and openness. It was slower, and more reflective then how I usually go through scripture. As said in class the purpose was to go through scripture relationally not cognitively. Scripture says “My son, be attentive to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Let them not escape from your sight; keep them