Spiritual Disciplines Handbook

Practices That Transform Us

Adele Ahlberg Calhoun

• Publisher: IVP
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9780830876976
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Rituals & Practice

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Part One

WORSHIP

Human beings are made for worship. Everyone worships someone or something. In The Everlasting Man, G. K. Chesterton wrote, “The crux and crisis is that man found it natural to worship; even natural to worship unnatural things. . . . If man cannot pray, he is gagged; if he cannot kneel, he is in irons.” Human beings cannot help but assign ultimate value and worth to someone or something. Of course, that doesn’t mean everyone worships God. One’s ultimate devotion can rest in money, success, a person, a garden, a creed, a cause and so forth. Ultimately what we are devoted to will shape our lives.

Many of us are devoted to the same things our culture worships: houses, money, retirement plans, vacations, comforts, success. In and of themselves none of these things is bad. But when we value these things more than we value God, we end up worshiping secondary things. Secondary things can never satisfy core longings. Only a love relationship with our Creator can do that.

In worship we fall into the arms of God and say “Have your way with me.” The early church fathers sometimes spoke of a dancing Trinity. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit moved together in a rhythm of self-giving love. Worship is a response to God’s invitation to join the dance. It is a way we tap into what is true about us—we do desire God. As Ruth Haley Barton writes in Invitation to Solitude & Silence, “Your desire for God and your capacity to connect with God as a human soul is the essence of who you are.”

Spiritual disciplines are one way we join the dance and learn basic rhythms and steps that help us respond to God. Disciplines of worship put us in a place to be receptive and responsive to the Holy Spirit’s movements and invitations.

Though all disciplines lead to worship, for the sake of cataloging the disciplines, only classical worship practices have been included under the letter W. The classical disciplines of worship focus our attention on the beauty of the Trinity—the source of all that is good, true and beautiful.

“May the Son of God who is already formed in you grow in you—so that for you he will become immeasurable, and that in you he will become laughter, exultation, the fullness of joy which no one can take from you.” —Isaac of Stella

Celebration

DESIRE	to take joyful, passionate pleasure in God and the radically glorious nature of God’s people, Word, world and purposes
DEFINITION	Celebration is a way of engaging in actions that orient the spirit toward worship, praise and thanksgiving. Delighting in all the attentions and never-changing presence of the Trinity fuels celebration.
SCRIPTURE	“The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.” (Zephaniah 3:17) “I will praise the LORD who counsels me. . . . Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure. . . . You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.” (Psalm 16:7, 9, 11) “Applause, everyone. Bravo, bravissimo! Shout God-songs at the top of your lungs!” (Psalm 47:1 The Message) “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” (Psalm 139:14)
PRACTICE INCLUDES	Identifying and pursuing those things that bring the heart deep gladness and reveling in them before the Lord. This may include time spent with others, sharing meals, working, serving, worshiping, laughing, listening to music, dancing and so on.
GOD-GIVEN FRUIT	keeping company with Jesus no matter what happens living from a mentality of abundance rather than of scarcity participating in the celebration and love of the Trinity rejoicing always in the God who rejoices over you (Zephaniah 3:17) enjoying every good and perfect gift as coming from God living out of the joy of your salvation cultivating a spirit of gladness taking yourself less seriously freedom from the addiction to criticism or negativity having holiday traditions that guide your celebration

Celebration

God celebrates. He invented delight, joy and celebration. And one way we enter into the divine life of the Trinity is through celebration. Whether solemn or exhilarating, formal or spontaneous, celebration can enlarge our capacity to enjoy and serve God. Celebrating God does not depend on perfect circumstances or happy feelings. Even in prison Paul and Silas found something to sing about (Acts 16). And Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, wrote:

My soul is downcast within me.

Yet this I call to mind
and therefore I have hope:

Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.

They are new every morning. (Lamentations 3:20-24)

Jeremiah found reason to delight and hope in God even in a lament.

The world is filled with reasons to be downcast. But deeper than sorrow thrums the unbroken pulse of God’s joy, a joy that will yet have its eternal day. To set our hearts on this joy reminds us that we can choose how we respond to any particular moment. We can search for God in all circumstances, or not. We can seek the pulse of hope and celebration because it is God’s reality. Heaven is celebrating. Right now the cherubim, seraphim, angels, archangels, prophets, apostles, martyrs and all the company of saints overflow with joy in the presence of their Creator. Every small experience of Jesus with us is a taste of the joy that is to come. We are not alone—and that in itself is reason to celebrate

To abandon ourselves to celebration can feel like a risky thing. What if we are misunderstood or seem to take hard things too lightly? King David was so “undignified” in his celebration of the Lord that his wife rebuked him for his public impropriety! But David replied, “I will celebrate before the LORD. I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes” (2 Samuel 6:21-22). Set your eyes on God as you celebrate, and forget how you look. God delights in all kinds of worship.

Reflection Questions

1. Where are you most prone to celebrate God? Alone? With others? In worship? In music? In nature?
   What does this tell you about how God made you and how you most naturally meet with him?
2. How is your celebration enhanced or curtailed by your ability to remember the past, live in the moment or anticipate the future?
3. When you see others celebrating God in a way that is new or foreign to you, what goes on in your mind and heart?
4. If there is a heaviness about you, an overly serious side or an entrenched critical spirit, how might celebrating God affect these traits and move you into new areas of transformation?
5. Who do you know who really celebrates life and God?
6. What attracts you to them?

Spiritual Exercises

1. Identify the place you most readily connect with God. Is it in nature? listening to Christian music? participating in corporate worship? solitude? Go to that place. What do you want to tell God about the joy you receive there?
2. Intentionally place yourself in the presence of God. Recall all of God’s gifts, provisions, guidance and love toward you. • To celebrate God’s grace to you, write a song of celebration, make a collage that represents your joy, write a poem of praise, play music and dance before the Lord, or memorize a verse of praise and repeat it a...