Creative Spiritual Disciplines Podcast Episode

We have to find ways of experiencing satisfaction in God in our everyday lives and disciplines are a means to that end. And if there’re not serving that end, then we’re going to want to think about them again. Those become opportunities to think creatively perhaps. That’s good. Welcome everyone to Breaking Bread, the podcast brought to you by Apostolic Christian Counseling and Family Services. 

My name is Matt Kaufman and up from Peachtree City, I’ve got Isaac Funk with me here today in the office. Welcome, Isaac. Thanks. It’s great to be here. Yeah. As often is the case when Isaac’s in the studio, we talk about discipleship, we talk about growing in Christ’s likeness, and I look forward to Isaac and I having a conversation along those lines here today. 

Yeah, same. Looking forward to the conversation. Let’s just start, as we talk about spiritual disciplines we’ve laid some of this foundation before, but as foundations go, you can’t have them too sure. And you can’t have them too deep. So, let’s just start with spiritual disciplines and let me tell you about where I’d like to go. 

Okay. And this is what I’ve come to call creative spiritual disciplines which might need some unpacking in and of itself. What are we talking about with creative spiritual disciplines? But let me just say that I have found in my own life, and as I walk with other people, that sometimes we’re shortsighted and we’re maybe altogether uncreative in ways in which we can connect with God. 

And we leave a lot on the table and a lot goes missed. And I’m always excited when I find a practice or something that really enlivens my walk with Jesus and here it’s gone without notice for many years. Does that make sense? Yeah. If we could capture the joy, the excitement, and the thrill of living and walking with God in new and unexpected ways as they concern the spiritual disciplines, I think that would be a terrific charge. 

Does that make sense? Yeah. And I love what you just mentioned about the thrill and the joy of living or walking with God and not even necessarily the thrill of the discipline itself, because the discipline is a means, it is a pathway to ideally connect with God, walk with God, and learn to live with him in a more fulfilling way. 

And so, yeah, I think having that explanation, you’re really doing the foundational work around spiritual disciplines. If you had a hard, fast definition, how would you define it? Yeah, well, we can define what they aren’t and then we can define what they are. Yes. Let’s do both. So spiritual disciplines are 

not ends in themselves. Doing a discipline, whether it’s reading the Bible, praying, fasting, giving money, tithing, all of that isn’t so I can be really good at praying or really good at fasting. It’s not the end. It’s not self-actualization. And God’s not impressed by that. He already accepts you. He already receives you as his child. And so, they’re not like rigid legalistic formulas or spiritual obligations that are laid on us, but they are meant to be flexible. They are personal pathways that lead us to experience more of God’s grace in our lives.  

We’ll say a little bit more about that grace. One way to define grace is unmerited favor. Yeah. A gift you didn’t deserve. And that’s very true. But that doesn’t necessarily define what it is. And so, one way you could think about grace is it is God’s action in your life. It is his transforming power. It’s a fuel of sorts. That’s right. 

Yeah. It can do what we cannot on our own. And so that’s what any discipline does. Even secular, you would engage in some sort of discipline. If I’m learning to play piano or play a basketball game, there are disciplines that I engage with that would enable me to do what I currently cannot do on my own. 

And spiritual disciplines are the things that we engage in that enable us to live a more spiritually deep, rich, fulfilling life that we could not do on our own. So, speak then to the Spirit of God and the role that he plays in this walk. Yeah. So, let’s be very clear here that we don’t change ourselves. We cannot force our way into Christlikeness by doing the right things or not doing the wrong things necessarily. We have to make ourselves more available to God’s transforming work. He invites us and asks us to step into his transforming grace. And the way we do that is through spiritual discipline. 

If we think about a motorboat and a sailboat. This is an analogy I got from Christian author John Ortberg. In a motorboat, you’ve got a lot of control there. You fill the tank with the gas; you start it up and you steer that motor and you can pretty much go wherever you want to go on that lake. But a sailboat is quite different. You can hoist the sails and move them around, but you are utterly dependent on the wind. And if the wind isn’t blowing and sometimes it’s not, you stay there. And so, you’re dependent on something bigger outside of yourself. Something beyond your control. But what you can do and are responsible to is to do whatever you can to catch the wind when it blows, to make yourself available to receive that, and then to be driven by that, where it would take you. 

I really like that. I think that analogy makes a lot of sense, but the real duty of the believers to yield themselves is not to attain or to reach out and apprehend as much as it is to submit and yield. You repent and then all good things in Christ’s likeness come to that individual who dies to themselves. Where is the submission, yielding, dying to ourselves? How does that fit into the spiritual discipline model as you’ve expressed it? I think for a lot of us, the experience of its spiritual discipline is we die to ourselves through it. 

I’m going to engage in fasting. So, it’s not necessarily going to be pleasant because it’s going to reveal some things about me and my dependencies that God wants to work through. And so, I can find more dependence on him if I practice the things that put less dependence on me. Things like going away into silence and solitude for a while. 

Same idea to stripping away to surrendering of ourselves, of our will, of our facades that we pick up through life and just say, God, it’s just me before you. I really like that, Isaac. In a sense, spiritual disciplines are what yielding and submitting ourselves look like. It is an artifact of faith in true yielding and submission, isn’t it? Yeah, it’s finding ways to embody our surrender and our submission to God, which is really helpful because sometimes when it is merely in the mind what is yielding to God, what does repentance look like if it’s only ethereal or only felt or only mental. 

This really brings a tangible bodily element to the yielding. Yeah. I think God has created us with bodies to be embodied. Jesus himself was embodied and continues to be embodied through his people, the church. And I think we ought to take note of that and surely, we do, but it can be easy to lose sight of because I think we do kind of elevate the mind more than perhaps what we do with our bodies. 

And so, share that definition of spiritual disciplines again. So, here’s another definition for spiritual disciplines. They are any repeated activities that are offered to God through which we cooperate with the Holy Spirit’s inner work to transform us from who we are into Christ’s likeness. 

I love that phrase, offered to God. Flesh out that offer to God part. I found that to be insightful. Yeah. So, I think one way to think about offering it to God is saying, God, I’m showing up for you to work and not doing this for any reason outside of your grace being appropriated into my life. 

Reading the Bible one way as managed on our own and another way offered to God. Now, what I really liked about that, and I feel it is really good news and really helpful because sometimes I think, am I doing it right? Am I reading the Bible, right? Am I praying right? And this offer to God business is really freeing and helpful. 

Am I fasting correctly? A lot of times we have questions about that. Well, does it need to be this, or does it need to be that? Or how about this? And did I violate that? Well, have you offered it to God? That’s the first most important thing, and it all rides on that. God, do with this meager effort, whatever it is, as you see fit. 

It’s again, just showing up. God, here it is. If you bring it before God, whatever that discipline is, you’re doing it right. It’s a matter of being, presenting yourself, being available to God. Now, okay, in the spirit of that, I think that’s really helpful as we’re talking about framing spiritual disciplines and the thoughtfulness that we can have about them in terms of what they might be in ways to connect with God that we haven’t thought of previously in the spirit of offering these things to God. 

Let me just set this up one more way and then I want you to jump in on it. Let’s just take prayer for example, or Bible reading. Yes, we know what those are, and so often we think I need to do more of it. If I need to grow, I should probably spend more time on these matters. More is fine, more might be right. 

More might be what God asks, but he might be saying, there are some different ways to engage with these things and maybe ways that are unique to you and separate from somebody else. Right. Yeah. I think we need to think about spiritual disciplines as tools that are unique to our personalities, unique to our seasons of life, which change and the circumstances around us. 

So, a young mother of four under six does not have the time to carve out substantial amounts of time sitting in the Word, or even in quiet prayer. They’ll have to find creative ways to engage with God in order to be helped. Yeah. Let’s launch into some examples of the different ways. Let’s take the spiritual discipline of reading God’s Word. 

What are the varied flavors that could take to help our listeners begin to think this way? I think one of the ways that I’ve come across in my own life, and I know it’s been a help to a lot of others, is the ability to hear the Word of God spoken audibly. So having recordings of the Bible played or devotions, things like that that you’re able to put on in the background, on your phone set on the table or whatever, while you are preparing breakfast for the kids or whatever is. 

This can be extremely valuable and should not be looked down on as a lesser way to receive the Scriptures. Yeah. You know, here’s something else that I’ve really enjoyed. I’ve read through Psalms and was so blessed by the book and I thought, you know, what if these 20-some psalms were a regular intake into my life? 

It would only do me good and what the psalmist was going through and all of those types of things. And so, I recorded my voice reading through these 20-some psalms. And I try to engage in that on a weekly basis, try to get through it on a weekly basis. And it’s been a beautiful way to take in some of these special psalms for myself, curated according to the needs of my own life with the hope that a decade of it is probably going to make a difference for me. Am I thinking along the lines of creative intake of Scripture? Yeah. Something else really important for us to grapple with is, am I finding the things that matter to my life? Am I finding the things that apply to me. 

I know how to contextualize this. I know the difference this would make in my life. If I could get all of these Psalms into my regular rhythm, I know that would make a difference for me. Yeah, and spend time in all of it. That’s a good thing. But definitely don’t spend time in any of it because you feel like you can’t enter into Leviticus. You can’t start there. You could start into Psalms or the gospels with walking with Jesus there. Another thing that I was thinking about with the Scriptures, like there are personalities that are very doer versus thinker, and they’re just very busy people and that’s good for them. 

But these are the people who are reading, they’re like, I’m going to knock out four chapters this morning before work or whatever. And for them, maybe another way to look at that is like, okay maybe just take a small passage or a verse. And just meditate on that really slowly. That would be a really great discipline for someone who’s just generally a hurried, busier person in life. 

Okay. How do I actually slow down and meet with God rather than seeing this as a way to check off my spiritual list today. To just slow down. You’re really saying slowing down with the Scriptures is a nice change up for a person who is reading a lot or racing through. 

Yeah. If we see this as a way to make us available to God’s grace. This is where I meet with God through his written Word. That’s a totally different way to approach opening the Bible. So, you mentioned meditation. Help us with that. Speak of the variety of ways that could take or what that could look like in the experience. 

Yeah. So, some people are going to meditate on the Scripture. That might look like going and finding a quiet room in the house early in the morning, maybe before other people get up and sitting down opening the Word and just dwelling in quiet before God. Breathing deeply sort of thing, and maybe you’ve got your warm cup of coffee in your hands or something while you do that. 

And that’s a beautiful picture for someone with my personality. Well, let’s pause right there. You mentioned pouring yourself a cup of coffee and finding your setting and all of that type of thing. I think that speaks to a little bit about what we’re talking about here is being really thoughtful about, how can I do this? 

How can I enhance this? How can I couple it with the other things in my life that bring me joy and how can I bring that activity into a connective moment with God? Yeah. How do we make the space to serve the discipline? Yes. And use both of those as avenues, as means, as tools to connect with God, I think is a beautiful way to look at it. Yeah. You know, I’ve mentioned this before, but I’ve got a daughter who takes in every sunset possible. She is outside viewing it, perhaps taking a picture of it. What a beautiful activity. Right. But it’s not automatic for her to make it a time to connect with God. 

There’s more intention that needs to happen, but what an opportunity. And what a way to come in to say, hey, how can we make this opportunity, this moment that you’re doing right here, a God moment. How can we connect with God in here? How can this be a worshipful place in a worshipful intent? 

She’s already carved the time out. She already wants to do it, but there needs to be some help to take it to the next level. Yeah. What we all need to do is find ways to love God more, and that’s what we’re doing with disciplines. It’s another way to think about the ways that I’m learning to love God more and so if I am loving the sunsets, it’s like, wow, this brings me peace and joy. Go look at that. And you think of God while you’re doing that. That’s going to do an awful lot of good for your God image and seeing God as the creator of that sort of beauty, the originator from whom beauty flows. I mean, what a wonderful way to commune with the creator God in his creation that way. 

And so yeah, meditation can look like that. I’m meditating on this sunset as God’s creation or a lot of people actually will benefit from going on walks, and that’s where their meditation time is. I’m just going to go on a walk-through nature or their neighborhood or wherever around their house. And maybe they’re reciting Psalm 23 that they learned when they were in second grade or something.  

Now that was helpful. Okay. Because what do I do with my brain while I walk? You know, because I’m sure, I have to do something with my brain in order for this to be a spiritual discipline, which is interesting. 

Right. I think that’s where we’re thinking. Like, what do I need to be doing now. You suggested reciting the 23rd psalm. Oh, that’s very doable. I haven’t thought about that. I do know that. Or another precious passage that you’ve memorized, right? There’s so much. So, yeah, speak more about that. 

What do I do with my words? What do I do with my mind in these moments as I want to capture them for God. Yeah. Well again, some people will turn to things like hymns or worship music playing, and that’s a really meditative space for them to just dwell on God. Or an audio bible, or just the written Word before them. 

One thing I’ll say is that allows for these sorts of disciplines to even take place sometimes is when we get the Word of God into our minds through memory. So scripture memory is one of the foundational, I would say, spiritual disciplines so that when you’re in all these other spaces, when you’re enjoying just your cup of coffee, and if you have the Word of God in your mind, it doesn’t take very long to just start dwelling on those. I don’t even have to pull out my Bible yet. You know, like it’s just there. And that’s a really powerful thing. But it’s something I think a lot of us can miss if we aren’t intentional about our memorization and reading the Bible every day. 

Yeah, that’d be good. Muse on the Bible every day. Absolutely. And there’s a difference between those, isn’t there? The musing on the Scriptures of having it present in mind, having it guiding and directing the way we think, for example, goes with us. And you’ve painted that option. This is what God wants to do with our scriptural intake.  

Let’s go to another discipline. You select one and let’s just talk about what does it look like to be creative in this space? So, if we were going to take prayer as an example, which again, some people just naturally gravitate towards, I’m going to go sit in my closet and pray before God on my knees or whatever. 

And some people, that’s just not a connection to God for them. And you might have somebody who is maybe a more visual person. They’re like, man, I just cannot picture what I’m praying. It’s like it’s there and I lose it immediately. It just feels really manufactured. Maybe like using doodles or art journaling or something as you pray is a really effective means for connecting with God. 

For someone who is visually stimulated, what a great way to connect with God, somebody who is in a really busy season of life. Maybe this is something where you just kind of memorize a short prayer that you can just inhale, exhale as you’re changing the baby’s diaper or on your way between meetings or something. 

Just these short breath prayers is another term for these that you just carry with you, and it might be the same thing, but you’re repeating it throughout the day and then that becomes a really beautiful space for connecting with God, a meaningful way to pray to him throughout your day. I really like that. 

I mean, those couple examples exposed my own rut and even maybe a misnomer to think that all prayers need to have some words. But really the way you’ve expressed that, there is prayer without words, and we read in the Scriptures about the Spirit of God groaning on our behalf. 

Right. Again, that opens up to us another one that prayer needs to be spontaneous, for example, but you were very thoughtful, like reading a prayer or we could take the Psalms, for example, as a template of prayer and pray those back, and they don’t even have to be original works. Sometimes, which I think again wonderfully opens up the space that prayer is so far more than what perhaps we first saw it to be. Again, we can’t treat the discipline as the end in itself. Should we pray? Yes, we should pray, but always to connect with God and so how are we actually doing that? 

That’s what we need to be thinking creatively about. What are the ways that I connect with God in this particular circumstance of my life? And also, just being aware that will probably change as the years go on. Particularly if you’re a spontaneous person that could be a life-giving joyful freedom for you to think about that. It doesn’t always have to look the same. It’s not about the activity itself, but it’s about, again, connecting to the giver of life.  

So, imagine somebody’s here before you and they’re like, Isaac, I want to connect with God. I want to take very seriously my spiritual disciplines. Help me talk through my life in a way that might inspire me towards a few of these. So, I really like what you’ve said about stages of life and those types of things. Give us some more of those categories to think about all under the auspices of giving this to God. How might that conversation go in your head?  

One of the things I found really interesting to work with people on is if we think about all of our life as part of how we are following Jesus, not just in our quiet times, not just our times of Bible reading or going to church, but all of the different avenues there, whether it’s school, job, recreation, rest, all of that. Those are interesting questions for me to say, how can we connect with God through those areas of your life, which frankly make up a large part of our life. The majority of our life is spent working, learning, playing, and resting. And so, let’s have some interesting creative discussion on what it would look like to use those things as disciplines or implement disciplines into those spaces of our lives.  

I think that’s huge. Isaac, you’re really saying connecting that with all of life. And thinking about what it is that I’m doing with my life. Where am I at? And then that would be unique to the stage that we’re in.  

I’ve got four kids around my ankles right now. Or I’m a schoolteacher and I find much of my day is spent with students, or I’m a farmer and I find myself in solitude in the field very often. All of those would be the backdrop of a unique walk with God. I’ll just tell you one I’ve been delighted in a lot recently, and this was not my original idea. I know life can be chaotic with a young family, and so there are times when we get together for a meal. 

One of the rituals that we begin a meal with is lighting a candle on our table. And that becomes a discipline for us to remember that God is constant, like that candle that will stay lit throughout the meal, hopefully, that every time now we look at that candle, no matter what sort of chaos is going around the table, it’s steady. That flame keeps burning and it’s present. God’s present. And so that reminds us of God’s nearness and reminds us of his consistency, his faithful presence with us. Even when everything around us feels chaotic, busy, hard, and messy. That’s been just a delightful way to bring God into a part of our day that otherwise it’s easy to miss him. 

That’s a great example of even something in our environment that can help us be that trigger. Remembering that God is constant is a beautiful example. So, one of the other things that comes up sometimes when people are thinking creatively about these things is, what are the disciplines in my life that I am already doing, whether that’s reading your Bible, fasting, meditation, whatever. Which of those things have started to become really dull? Just like, man, this is life-sucking rather than life-giving. 

Those would be great places to start. Maybe just take one of those things and think about that. So maybe your Bible reading has gotten really stale. Okay. There’s a good indicator that might be something you could think creatively about. Here’s one that occurred to me in this conversation with some brothers and talking about giving and how one had come to do spontaneous giving rather than calculated rhythmic giving and how that breathed life into that giving process. 

Like, okay, here’s a bunch of money. We just need to give it away. And they started looking for opportunities because they had the money on hand. You know what I mean? Yeah, that’s a creative way. Do you think that person over time becomes a more cheerful giver? Yeah. And is that what God would have them to be, to bear his image through that? 

Certainly, it was just a shift of the same thing, but it provided the return and the result that really further that discipline and changed them as a person. Yeah. We have to find ways of experiencing satisfaction in God in our everyday lives and disciplines are means to that end, and if they’re not serving that end, then we’re going to want to think about them again. Those become opportunities to think creatively. That’s good. I love that. You know, I think one of the beautiful aspects of Jesus’ calling is that he calls us to follow, and the promise we get out of his calling to follow is his presence. 

That’s what we get, which is what we’re talking about. What are spiritual disciplines without the presence of God. That’s what we’re engaging in as we walk the road of following Jesus. Thanks, Isaac for your insights. As always, I really enjoyed the conversation. We have been blessed and spurred onto more creativity, and I hope our listeners have as well. 

God bless each of you as you engage in your walks with Jesus and connecting with God. We have all been made to connect with him, and that’s a beautiful thing to access. God be praised.