The Life You've Always Wanted

If you're like me, you enjoy checking off things from your task list and feeling a sense of accomplishment when you do. It feels good right? Many of us take this same approach to our spiritual journey, but that's not necessarily bad. Sometimes churches and preachers villainize doing that because we're not supposed to be “box-checking Christians”, however there are certainly things we need to do on our daily walk with Christ so that we are able to flourish.

I recently read the book, The Life You've Always Wanted: Spiritual Disciplines for Ordinary People, by John Ortberg. His overarching theme is about God wanting us to engage him holistically so we can experience the life we have always wanted through intentional spiritual disciplines that allow us not to try harder, but train to be more like Him.  You must arrange your life around certain practices that will enable you to do what you cannot do now by willpower alone.[1] Ortberg focuses primarily on spiritual discipline being not about us trying, but rather training. Trying is under our power.  Training is under the Holy Spirit’s power. The more we do something through trying, we can either arrive at or achieve something by our own will and strength. Then we can brag about what we did. That's the very reason the art of doing religion gets villainized in church circles.

Spiritual training is doing the things that allow the Holy Spirit to achieve what He wants us to do and who He wants us to become. 

For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come. 1 Timothy 4:8

The purpose of spiritual discipline is Godliness. It is modeling our lives after Jesus’ life by thinking how he thinks and doing as he would do. This makes me think about those WWJD bracelets. Do you remember those?

To grow spiritually means to live increasingly as Jesus would in our unique place—to perceive what Jesus would perceive if he looked through our eyes, to think what he would think, to feel what he would feel, and therefore to do what he would do.[2] It's not about just being spiritual or doing spiritual things. Jesus did spirituality with Judas and we all know how that worked out.

“Spiritual discipline is not simply to do spiritual things, but to be a catalyst for our spiritual transformation.”

[It] cannot be orchestrated or controlled, but neither is it a random venture.[3]  It should be what we intentionally do that allows the Holy Spirit to grow our heart more like and towards God’s.

Some examples of spiritual discipline are prayer, Bible study, being in solitude, confession, reflecting on scripture, perseverance through our suffering, and being a servant to others. All these are practiced with the goal of knowing and growing in God more. At the core of spiritual discipline is having a relationship with God. This certainly helps us love Him more, but also better obey the second commandment that Jesus told us, which is loving others. That can be the hard part. The ministry of bearing with one another is more than simply tolerating difficult people, but learning to hear God speak through them.[4]

Spiritual transformation comes about through these activities where we train in these disciplines that open our hearts and ourselves up to the transforming power of God.  These disciplines do not, because of merely the action of doing them in and of themselves, make us more spiritual, however they are giving opportunity to the Holy Spirit.

When the heart is well-ordered, we are not only increasingly free from sin, but also increasingly free from the desire to sin.[5] 

When we pray, read and meditate on God’s Word, serve others, and confess our sins to God with contrition, then we practice what we need to do for our heart and mind to change into the person He has wanted us to be so we can live the life we have always wanted. 

OPTIONAL READING
Here's my optional commentary of the book if you'd like to read more. If not, I won't be offended. I'd love to hear your own thoughts, in the comments, of what you thought about the book, if you've read it, and also what you think about my blog post.

As I read this book what stood out to me most was how elegant, yet practical, he wrote everything. I love John Ortberg books and it is like he is in my own mind at times. There was not anything in particular that he wrote in this book that I did not like, but I believe it was lacking one key area for Christ followers. If we are to follow Christ as disciples, then we need to obey his commands. The last thing he said before he ascended into heaven was to go out and make more disciples (Matthew 28:19). That being said, what I would have liked to have had included in each of the spiritual discipline sections, throughout each chapter, is for guidance to lead others in that. This book seemed more like a Christian self-help book, however perhaps that was by design. Jesus told us that we are to love God and love people. Doing so means we are leading them to know and grow in Him more.

When we lead, that might appear differently in practice for people than it does for ourselves. If we are simply learning how to grow spiritually for our own benefit, that serves only half of our calling. Obviously, we need to come to a foundational understanding of who God is by learning certain fundamentals of the faith in order to share the Gospel, before we lead others, by allowing the work of the Holy Spirit to mature us spiritually. That part is true, but we also ought to have in our minds that we are not simply doing this for our own journey. Jesus called his disciples to make more disciples, not remain one disciple. He wants to duplicate himself in us so He can duplicate himself through us. The overflow of the Holy Spirit into the lives of others is the mark of a true Christ follower. This is what I would have liked to see more in Ortberg’s book so we can be better equipped to handle the leadership component of mentoring people through spiritual disciplines. Thanks for reading! -R. Garon

Reference:
1. Ortberg, J. (2015). The life you’ve always wanted: spiritual disciplines for ordinary people. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. (Ch. 3)
2. Ibid., Ch. 1
3. Ibid., Ch. 12
4. Ibid, Ch. 7
5. Ibid., Ch. 12
Purchase John Ortberg's book here: https://amzn.to/2QfuQrV

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