Now that my time with the disciplines is over, what have I learned? This has been different, as this time I wasn’t just reading and thinking about them but trying to actually practice them.

Because I was trying to recover a spiritual depth I’ve previously had, I ended up with was a lot of good intentions to practice each discipline more. However, Foster warns us repeatedly to not let these practices become legalistic, and that is a warning I didn’t take to heart as I should’ve. It’s so easy to turn the disciplines into a checklist, but when we do that, they quickly become overwhelming.

Also, while it's true that I have practiced each of them at various points in my past, I never did them all at the same time. So it isn’t realistic to expect to practice all of them at once. This means I need to figure out which are the most important to me in this season and work on incorporating them.

What surprised me?

What didn't surprise me?

The inner disciplines (meditation, prayer, fasting and study - as categorized by Foster) were the ones that felt the most natural to practice. As an introspective introvert, this is to be expected. Going forward, I should focus on at least a couple of those. While it is beneficial to sometimes practice disciplines that aren't as comfortable, I believe the majority of the time it's still best to lean into the ones that align with how God designed us - there's a reason He created us with our temperament and gifting, and I believe He meets us uniquely in that place.

I've chosen to be intentional about meditation and prayer, because I’d like to add Lectio Divina as a more regular practice, and because I used to practice prayer in a variety of ways and gained so much from that.

I had initially chosen to go through Celebration of Discipline because I thought it would work well as a blog series, since I had taken groups through it before and thought it could be beneficial to everyone – but I somehow didn’t expect that the “everyone” would include me! This time through, I didn’t so much learn about the disciplines themselves, as I was already quite familiar with them – but I learned firsthand how easy it can be to fall into legalism - and with that, I learned more about what it looks like to be intentional about practicing the disciplines in a spiritually healthy way.

So what about you? What were your main takeaways during this series? Did anything surprise you? If you were to choose a discipline to focus on, which one would you choose, and why?

Comment below or contact me – I’d love to connect with you!