How Badly Do You Want It?

Whether it is their remarkable wisdom, courage, humility or simplicity etc., we often gaze upon the great men and women of God with awe and admiration. We feel like midgets when we stand beside these spiritual giants. Once in a while, their biographies / autobiographies become our source of encouragement and inspiration and spur us to strive to emulate their lives...at least for a while.

Yet, more than often, our fixation upon the fruits of their lives causes us to fail to realise or recognise their deliberate choice of imposing certain spiritual disciplines upon themselves which made them who they are. Sometimes, we subconsciously assume that the remarkable characteristics that they had is a given, and we fail to recognise that like all of us (some worse than us), they started from scratch. It was through the constant choice of imposing certain disciplines upon themselves that they could develop deeper spirituality, and hence, enabled God to mould them into extraordinary heroes.

As we listen to or read the life accounts of these people, we must not remain at the level of emotional stimulation. Rather, it is crucial to ask ourselves whether we too, desire a deeper spirituality and will take the deliberate steps towards its fulfillment.

As Protestants, we are reminded again and again and again that prayer and Scripture reading are daily responsibilities for a good Christian. Yet, because of our lack of conviction or desire to do so, we often fail miserably in fulfilling such responsibilities. Yet, perhaps we never really bother to ask ourselves why is there a need to do so and what effect such disciplines could have upon us. Because of the lack of this understanding, it is unsurprising that there is no conviction or desire to impose such spiritual disciplines upon ourselves.

Imposing spiritual disciplines upon ourselves is a deliberate choice that we make, and such a choice must be founded upon a clear understanding of the benefits of the disciplines, followed by a genuine conviction of desiring such benefits. It does not necessarily mean that a person will enjoy the spiritual disciplines with great pleasure without any struggle, but the conviction will motivate the person to be willing to go through the disciplines because of his personal desire to reap the benefits of the disciplines.

As a start for Protestants like us, who are often limited only to the options of Scripture reading and praying as means for deeper spirituality (thus, there is a need to explore various means by learning from other Christian traditions), we should seek to understand the benefits of such disciplines, and ask ourselves honestly whether we desire such benefits (in developing a deeper spirituality). If not, such disciplines are meaningless and are done only to free us from the guilt of omission.

It all boils down to this question (which was posed to me by Sherman), "How badly do you want it (a deeper spirituality)?"

Choice is yours (and mine).