Practicing the Ways of Jesus
After reading John Mark Comer’s newest publication, Practicing the Way: Be with Jesus. Become like him. Do as he did.,” I have felt the pull to reevaluate the thoughts, habits, and origins of character formation in my day-to-day life. Comer’s book was especially convicting, in that my commitment to Jesus’s practices fall starkly short in relation to the amount of time that I have called myself a Christian. When describing Christians, Comer uses the term 'disciples of Jesus.’ Being a disciple is synonymous with a pattern of lifestyle that prompts you to become like the person you are learning from. I feel the weight of Jesus’s life, sacrifice, resurrection, and promise of return in a much more tangible and heavy sense, when I internalize the idea of being a disciple of Jesus Himself. Discipleship is not a long-past term, only applied to the 12 apostles or close followers who intimately knew Jesus during His earthly ministry. We too are invited to be disciples, and in aligning ourselves with Jesus Christ, are called to live in a manner worthy of the Gospel; to live as though we know, love, and have the good news (because we do!).
Practicing the way has become more than a book. In fact, https://www.practicingtheway.org/ serves as a resource to anyone desiring to better know, understand and apply the practices of Jesus. Of the nine general practices (note, Comer highlights that there are SO many practices of Jesus found in the Bible; these are simply nine that we can start with), sabbath, prayer, fasting, solitude, generosity, scripture, community, service, and witness, I have felt especially convicted of my inconsistency in sabbath/solitude, prayer, fasting, and scripture.
In the past three weeks alone, I have felt the weight of spiritual exhaustion and depletion after having gone without a quiet time or adequate time in prayer and scripture. I also haven’t fasted since last year!
The last month has been so full of God’s abundant blessing and equally so, full of temptation, anxiety, and depression from the flesh. My job entails long hours that often leave me very tired and depleted (especially if I have not prepared well). There were so many moments last week when I undoubtedly felt the Spirit calling me to prepare and set aside time to be in relationship with God. In response, I took about 10 minutes on a select few mornings, here and there, where I read a few verses in my reading plan before rushing into a frenzy to get ready for work.
Finally, last Tuesday, I dragged myself out of bed after a fitful nap in my messy room, and showed up to my mid-week church gathering. Walking into the church from the parking lot seemed so hard; I felt the spiritual weight of anger and resentment towards a disagreement I had earlier that week, towards a challenging relationship with a coworker, towards a stressful life-change I am going through, and towards my proclivity for self-pity and insecurity. To put it simply, I felt dry and weak. Not just in my body, but in my spirit too.
I went into worship with a bad attitude, but by the end, I felt the Lord bringing John 15 to mind.
“I am the true vine and my father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neigher can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. (John 15: 1-5, ESV).”
In this text I feel the prompting to simply come unto Christ. Right now. Abide in Him. Someone once asked me how I define abiding. I would describe abiding in Christ as the staying, the deepening and the positioning of one’s self towards the likeness of Christ in terms of thought patterns, actions, words, and responses. Hard stuff.
I have written about John 15 before because I love it. I think it will always apply and it serves as a check-in point; am I still abiding in Christ? When I read John 15 on Tuesday, I felt the depth of the space that I have been putting between myself and God.
Something so sweet happened, further highlighting my need to stop and actively abide in Christ. A girl whom I had never met walked up to me at the very end of the service. She told me that she felt like I needed prayer for something specific. My immediate and exact response was “Oh thanks! No, I’m Ok. But I'll take a general prayer!” I felt the quiet whisper of the Spirit; in reality, there was so much weighing on my heart. I stopped and said “Wait, actually, I need prayer for anxiety.” She prayed, “ God, I pray that she will spend time with you. He wants you to come back to Him.” Deep inside me I felt the Spirit saying “This is what you need. You need to be with Me.”
After that night, my mind kept going back to the four key practices that I mentioned earlier: scripture, solitude/sabbath, prayer, and fasting. The final red flag: that week I began to notice- each time I chose not to set aside time to be with God before going to work, my tendency towards negative thought patterns, anxiety, and impatience towards others ran HIGH.
My challenging month of anxiety, stress, old patterns of sin, and constant anger, culminating with my Tuesday experience, led to what is now a proposed journey of introspection and documentation:
I am about to switch to a night shift schedule for the next eight weeks. I am going to use that time and this blog to maintain accountability and document ways that we, as a naturally busy and hurried society, can implement scripture, solitude/sabbath, prayer, and fasting into our lives.
My initial goals include:
Setting aside an entire hour (I know, that's a long time, but I’m in need of soul TLC) every day to be with Jesus in prayer, scripture reading, and solitude.
Continuing reading my daily Bible plan, but add on a daily Psalm and a daily Proverb
Spending the car ride to work in prayer or in active listening to God
Only listening to my audio book of the month or worship music in the car
Fasting every Tuesday, from dinner on Monday to dinner on Tuesday.
Journaling something every day during my quiet time.
Implementing the beginning stages of a sabbath on Thursdays. For starters, I am not going to access any social media or work emails. I am going to spend time outside and read. I will also use about 2 hours of my Thursday to prepare for the rest of my week. This will set me up for success in being on-time while sticking to my quiet-times.
Praying scripture. I am going to work on memorizing the Psalms I am reading and implementing them into my commute and quiet-time prayer.
I tend to look for practicality when it comes to habit formation. That is not always possible, but in this instance, there is so much practical reason to start practicing the ways of Jesus. I would encourage you to 1. Read practicing the Way, and/or 2. Pick a few practices of Jesus (even just one) that you can use as guide-ropes as you seek to abide in Christ. So excited for coming growth!
