Rungs in the Ladder: Spiritual Disciplines

In my last blog post Where is your Ladder Leaning?, I challenged us all to embrace a teleological perspective on life ... looking at the end of the journey or the rooftop that your ladder is leaning against.

I find the ladder analogy helpful in keeping my eye on the "chief end" for my life, but it is also valuable to pay attention to the daily rungs in that ladder. Just as a long-term goal needs short-term steps along the way, a teleological life perspective needs daily actions that move us towards that future goal. 

Each teleological end, has steps along the way. Professional athletes pursuing a world championship have a strict, daily regimen of practice, strength training, and diet ... each discipline is a rung on the ladder to athletic success. If your main goal in life is to be wealthy, there are seminars, workshops, blogs, books, and podcasts telling you the steps you must take to achieve that goal. The same can be found (all for a price) if your rooftop goal is focused on health, beauty, or fitness. Religions, likewise incorporate disciplines (called spiritual disciplines) to achieve eternal bliss, states of enlightenment, or a celestial kingdom.

For Christianity, spiritual disciplines are different than other religions. Christian spiritual disciplines are for spiritual growth and to grow closer to God NOT to earn God's favor or to achieve salvation. To be honest, Christians have become lazy in our spiritual disciplines, and, to continue the analogy, it has weakened the rungs in our ladder and caused spiritual instability. 

Christian spiritual disciplines are relatively simple actions that ought to become habits of righteousness. If our chief end is to "glorify God and enjoy Him forever," we should follow God's plan and use it to "train up our children in the way they should go" (Prov. 22.6). 

Here are a few of those rungs that should be in our ladder (and trained up in our children) ...

Delight in the Bible and Meditate on it Day and Night.  

God clearly outlines a path for the "blessed life" in Psalm 1. After stating what we should not do, the psalmist provides a simple spiritual discipline: blessed is the one who delights in God's word and meditates on it day and night.

Two elements to this spiritual discipline. 

1) Meditate (read, consider, reflect) on God's word day and night. Simply, set aside time for Bible reading each morning and evening. 

What a great way to begin and end the day! Do we practice this spiritual discipline? Have we trained our children in this so that when they are old they will not depart from it?

2) Delight in God's word. Simply, find joy, wonder, awe in what you are reading day and night.

This seems contradictory to the word "discipline."  Isn't a discipline hard and difficult, not delightful? Deep hermeneutical Bible study is hard work ... that is a spiritual discipline, for sure, but is just delighting in God's word? 

What a great gift! God wants this to be a joy not a chore. How often do we delight in God's word? Do we share that delight with our children?  Yes, you can do a "hard" Bible study, but make sure you don't lose the delight in the work.  

Rejoice, Pray, Give Thanks 

I Thessalonians 5:16-18 adds three rungs to the ladder. We often focus on "pray without ceasing" as a spiritual discipline, but it is sandwiched between rejoicing and thanksgiving in this passage. Simply, our prayers (and our lives) should be filled with joy and thankfulness because of what God has done. 

Spiritual disciplines are habits that are so embedded in your life that you couldn't live without them. Do you habitually pray, rejoice, and give thanks without ceasing? Are you spending time in prayer as an integral part of your day? Would your family, co-workers, and neighbors describe you as joyful and thankful? Are your children "counting their blessings" and praising God for them? 

Train Together

Spiritual disciplines, like athletic training, are best done together. God calls us to practice the spiritual disciplines both individually and with others. Paul challenges us to continue to meet regularly together for encouragement (Heb. 10:25) and "to spur up one another to love and good works" (Heb. 10:24).

Most of the spiritual disciplines are also trained up in church. Faithful churches meditate upon and delight in God's word. They rejoice, pray, and give thanks. What an encouragement church is each week! It is also a spiritual discipline that needs to be trained ... has it become a practice that is such an important part of your life that it hurts to miss it? 

Additionally, God calls us to meet together with other believers in small groups (even two or three gathered - Matthew 18:20) to train together on these spiritual disciplines ... read God's word, delight, rejoice, pray, give thanks (and many more). Meeting with Christian friends is also a spiritual discipline that is simple and delightful, but one that shouldn't be neglected. To return to Psalm 1:1 ... the unblessed life is the opposite of meeting with Christian friends, i.e., walking with the wicked, standing with sinners, and sitting with scoffers.

Spiritual disciplines are rungs on the ladder to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Let's ensure that those are strong steps in our spiritual growth ladder.

To be honest, spiritual disciplines have been a challenge for me, and this blog was difficult to write. I struggle with most of these, and they have not become habits of righteousness. If I look at my ladder, I definitely have some rungs that need to be stronger. However, I am thanking God for being gracious with me. God helps me every step of the way, and I hope that you found some encouragement in this blog.

Where is your Ladder Leaning?

If life is like a ladder, you have to be careful what wall you lean it against. This simile comes from a Stephen Covey quote: "If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just get us to the wrong place faster." Imagine getting to the top of the ladder of life only to realize that it was leaning against the wrong wall.

This is an interesting analogy used to emphasize a teleological perspective on life and to even consider with parenting. While not a perfect analogy for parenting, we often set our children on the first few rungs of a ladder without considering where that ultimately leads them. Unfortunately, many ladders are leaning against a wall that leads to a rooftop idol.

What wall is your ladder leaning against?

The Westminster Catechism begins with a "ladder" question ... "What is the chief end of man?" or to fit this analogy, what is the wall that our ladder should be leaning against? The Westminster divines answered this with ... "Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever." What a blessing to know that your ladder is against a wall leading to that roof ... soli deo gloria. 

Our culture has many well-trafficked ladders with people scrambling over each other to get to the rooftop idol. The rungs of those ladders can be identified by the amount of time, energy, and resources spent on things.

Affluence

Of all the idols of our time, affluence is at the highest rooftop. We have a ton of different ladders leading to the idols of financial success and comfort in life; and many people will do anything on this ladder to get to the top. In fact, if we are honest, parents want their children to attend a "good" K-12 school, so that they can get into a "good" college, so that they can get a "good" job, so that they can earn enough money to live a comfortable life (and send their own kids to a "good" school) ... and parents spend a lot of time, energy, and resources to ensure that this happens. However, is affluence and a comfortable life a proper rooftop goal ... or is it an idol of our time?

Athletics

As a parent, we want our children to develop their athletic talents, so time, energy, and resources are spent on youth sports. In fact, youth sports is a $40 billion industry in America (with parents paying more than $1,000 per sport), with an ever-increasing demand on time.  Interestingly, most sports are described as "terminal," meaning there will be an end to playing a sport, with only .023% playing professionally ... and most of those athletes retire before the age of 40. I know there is always pickleball 😊, but is athletics a ladder that leads to a rooftop idol or to a chief end?

Health, Fitness, Beauty

Surely, this is an honorable ladder to climb; looking at economics, Americans sure think so. The health and fitness industry is a huge economic force, valued at $22 billion annually with over 72 million Americans holding gym/fitness club membership. Additionally, the vitamin and supplement industry is valued at close to $60 billion, and the beauty market topping $100 billion. This ladder is fueled by social media's negative impact on self-esteem, mental health, and body image. While it may be a good thing to stay healthy and look beautiful, is it a chief end?

Of course, each "idol of our time" has multiple ladders leading to it.

Where is the ladder leaning for your children?

 

As a parent of five adult children, it has been convicting considering this question. I've definitely helped my kids take the first few steps on ladders that lead away from the rooftop that glorifies God, and I've even climbed some of those ladders ahead of them. 

When our covenant children get to the top of the ladder, what do we want them to find on the rooftop? Personally, I want my children to love the Lord with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love their neighbors as themselves. I want them to live with biblical wisdom; to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God.

What are the rungs on this ladder?

• Make church attendance a priority for everyone in the family. (Hebrews 10:25)
• Set aside Sunday as a day of rest and worship. (Westminster Catechism 60)
• Spend time as a family reading and delighting in God's word. (Psalm 1:1-2)
• Teach your children how to study God's word and learn about theology through hermeneutics, catechisms, and Bible study resources.
• Pray as a family in all situations, asking for wisdom. (1 Thessalonians 5:17)
• Sing God's word, hymns, and spiritual songs together. (Colossians 3:16)
• Encourage working diligently as to the Lord. (Colossians 3:23)
• Serve together as a family. (I Peter 4:10)
• Consider and discuss every aspect of life from a biblical perspective, asking what does God's word say about that?

These are some of the rungs that will help place your ladder on the right wall, leading your children to a chief end.