My Spiritual Journey...Part 3

Read Part 2 by clicking here

During my second year in San Antonio, as I dated and was pursued by Brent, my spiritual pendulum began to go back to the center. Throughout some good talks with Brent and Christ maturing and refining me, I was able to again discover that joy and love of our Savior that didn't depend on outward performances but instead depended on a wholehearted pursuit of my Savior. However, the hurt from my college years still remained because I still could not put definite structure around my Christian walk. I still felt suffocated if I had to commit to memorizing a certain amount of scripture. If I had to commit to spending so much time alone with God. If I had to commit to anything that anyone else told me I had to do in order to grow closer to God. Maybe its the rebellious nature in me or something. But I fought this battle until a few years ago. The past couple of years, the Lord has been changing my heart and giving me a longing for the spiritual disciplines. I was wary because I had been hurt, but the more God placed in my heart to study the disciplines, the more I realized that what I had experienced in the past was not spiritual discipline. It was legalism using the disciplines to achieve its purpose.

Which brings me to today. A few weekends ago, I spent an entire weekend with people who practice the spiritual disciplines in their daily life. They practice solitude, and meditation, and quietness, and prayer, and worship, and personal examination and reading the word, and thanksgiving, and simplicity, and missional life, and so much more. The difference I experienced that weekend was the peace that those who chose to live this type of life experienced. As God had been drawing my heart towards pursing the spiritual disciplines, my biggest fear was to fall into the legalistic lifestyle and never even know I was there. That weekend showed me how impossible that was if I was pursuing Christ and living in His Kingdom and the disciplines were a result of that. They showed me and reminded me of how to live “with God” and not just “for God”.

My spiritual journey is my life journey. God continually pushing me a little farther in my knowledge of Him so that one day I may be able to say with confidence that I am “rooted and established in love and may have the power to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ...that I may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” As I continue on my journey to grow more and more intimate with our Father, I will start blogging about how the spiritual disciplines are being implemented in my life. Maybe that's my way of holding myself accountable during this part of my spiritual journey =)

I'll continue posting every Tuesday about the process, successes, and learning experiences. Hope you enjoy reading!