091- Book | The Celebration of Discipline
Affiliate links have been used in this post! I do receive a commission when you choose to purchase through these links, and that helps me keep this podcast up and running—I truly appreciate when you choose to use them!
Resources from this episode:
Show Notes:
Today, it is a privilege to share with you one of my favorite books of all time. It's called the Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster. I was introduced to this book in my 12th grade Bible class believe it or not, in high school, and it opened my eyes to the depths of Christianity, friend.
And I don't know about you. I'm tired of surface, trite, make-it-what-you-want-it Christianity. I want the real God of the universe. I want what he has to say, even if it's hard to hear it. This book showed me the practices that we can do as believers to welcome Jesus into our very real lives and to hear his very real voice a little bit clearer. I'll be honest. These disciplines, they aren't easy. They are not for the faint of heart, but they are good. And they have changed me.
Also a little PSA on the side. This is the 11th of 12 books we are reading this year in the Nancy Ray Book Club. I'll do a podcast about the 12th book, Parenting With Love And Logic, in January, as we're still all in the middle of finishing reading that book.
For the full episode, hit play above!
Okay, buckle up.
This episode is going to be dense. It's going to be full of a lot of information, because that is how this book is written. And I feel like I would be short-changing you if I didn't go through each and every one of the disciplines just to kind of give you a quick outline of them.
So this episode of the Book Club is going to be a little different. I’m still going to share my three takeaways at the end, I'm just going to keep them super brief. But I want to start out this episode by reading excerpts from some of the first few paragraphs from The Celebration of Discipline. He starts,
"Superficiality is the curse of our age. The doctrine of instant satisfaction is a primary spiritual problem. The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people or gifted people, but for deep people. The classical disciplines of the spiritual life call us to move beyond surface living into the depths. They invite us to explore the inner caverns of the spiritual realm. They urge us to be the answer to a hollow world.
We must not be led to believe that the disciplines are only for spiritual giants and hence beyond our reach, or only for contemplatives who devote all of their time to prayer and meditation. Far from it. God intends the disciplines of the spiritual life to be for ordinary human beings. People who have jobs, who care for children, who wash dishes and mow lawns. In fact, the disciplines are best exercised in the midst of our relationships with our husband or wife, our brothers and sisters, our friends and neighbors."
Okay. That right there. I mean, this book had me at hello, right?
Just listening to those first few paragraphs pulls on my heart. I'm not even a page in, and I'm already convicted in feeling like I want to learn more. I want to be a person of depth.
So there's so much to unpack in this book. I'm going to go ahead and tell you right now, you're just going to have to read it. Okay? If you haven't been part of the book club, if you didn't read this along with us, that is totally fine. If you never finished it because it was really dense, make sure that you read this book. It's so good. There's no way on earth I can do it justice in this podcast episode.
But I do want to give you an overview of the disciplines like I said, summarizing each one, and then sharing my takeaways at the end. So the way this book is laid out, is it's separated into three different sections. First is the inward disciplines, then the outward disciplines, and then the corporate disciplines.
The inner disciplines are meditation, prayer, fasting, and study.
The outward disciplines are simplicity, solitude, submission, and service.
And then the corporate disciplines are confession, worship, guidance, and celebration.
Now before we get into unpacking these disciplines, I want to say something upfront: righteousness is a gift from God. Period. Romans 5:17 and Ephesians 2:8-9 are very, very clear. Our righteousness is not our own. It is straight from Jesus. It is his righteousness, and salvation and righteousness are gifts. They are completely for free.
Logically, does this mean that we need to just wait for God to transform us and then do nothing? If it is a free gift, what's the point of these disciplines? Right? Well, I love this sentence in the book that kind of explains that. He says,
"God gives us the disciplines of the spiritual life as a means to receiving his grace. The disciplines allow us to place ourselves before God so that he can transform us."
He calls it the path of disciplined grace. Grace, because it is free. It is completely free. His righteousness is free. But disciplined grace, the word discipline is there because there's still something for us to do, to participate in a relationship. Relationships are two ways.
I love this explanation in the book. He kind of explains these disciplines of the believer as this long, narrow ridge that we walk on. And to the left is human strivings for righteousness. Doing all the right things, trying to earn our righteousness by works. And then to the right is a complete absence of any human effort on our part for this relationship, zero effort. Just 100% receiving everything as a gift and almost being lazy about it. The narrow path represents the disciplines. He says,
"It's fraught with severe difficulties, but also incredible joys. This path does not produce the change. It only places us where the change can occur."
So let's jump into the disciplines. I'm going to give you a brief overview of all of the 12 disciplines mentioned in this book.
Meditation
First, he talks about meditation. Now we're going to start with the inward disciplines. And meditation is absolutely something that has to take place inside you in your mind and in your heart. He explains meditation as simply the ability to hear God's voice and obey his word. The whole purpose of it is just to grow in a familiar relationship with Jesus, almost do life with the Lord. It's abiding in him. It should happen all the time.
And he draws some pretty important differences between, I don't know what you would think of as worldly meditation, or picture somebody criss-cross with their hands up, like the Eastern meditation. He kind of draws some differentiators between that kind of meditation and Christian meditation. He says the biggest difference is the Eastern meditation is to empty the mind. That worldly meditation is focused on just emptying yourself and emptying the mind. But Christian meditation is to fill the mind. It is to apply our minds to the Lord, to let the Lord, the Holy Spirit come and fill up our minds in our entire selves, and really just inviting him in.
One of the examples he gives, and there's a lot of great practical examples in every single one of these, which I love the practicality of this book. But one of the examples he gives is it's like in the morning, if you want to practice Christian meditation, one idea is just to close your eyes and place your palms down. And just pray about all the things that are creating anxiety in your life. And as a symbol to the Lord, put your palms down and say, "Lord, I'm releasing this. I'm releasing the fact that I can't find childcare this weekend. I'm releasing how stressed out I am about this doctor's appointment. I'm releasing my long to-do list that I feel like I can never get done." I release all of that, and then just kind of take a deep breath, and then place your palms up and receive from the Lord. And say, "Lord, I receive your joy. I receive your presence. I receive the ability to think clearly because you have given me a sound mind." Just receive things from the Lord. Then just spend a few moments in complete silence with your entire attention being on God.
So those are just a few practical ways that we can incorporate meditation in our life. Of course, that chapter goes very in depth. It's beautiful, lots of different ways to practice meditation. He also points out that we can meditate on scripture for an entire day. We can meditate on God's presence. We can just kind of listen. There's a lot of different ways that we can practice meditation in our life.
Prayer
The second inward discipline is prayer. Okay. Let me just say. If you want to be challenged in your faith and in your prayer life, read this chapter. I don't know that I have ever been so convicted and challenged in the way that I pray than this chapter of this book.
So I love this line. He says,
"All who have walked with God have viewed prayer as the main business of their lives."
And that stopped me, because I kind of stopped and thought is prayer really the main business of my life? And if I'm honest, it's not. I have a lot of other things that are the main business of my life, like my family, and my work, and the things I have to do. So I think that line of itself is just very convicting.
And then he goes on to say that Jesus teaches about prayer, and that real prayer isn't something that we do, but that we have to kind of sit down and learn from Jesus. That phrase in the gospel says, "Lord, teach us to pray." I mean, the disciples wanted Jesus to teach him, and he did.
So the author Richard Foster said that he took the gospels. He cut out every reference of prayer, and then he pasted them onto sheets of paper. And he said, "When I could read Jesus's teaching on prayer in one sitting all in one place, I was shocked. Either the excuses and rationalizations for unanswered prayer I had been taught were wrong, or Jesus' words were wrong." He said, "I determined to learn to pray so that my experience conformed to the words of Jesus, rather than trying to make his words conform to my impoverished experience."
Whoa, I have chills reading that. I feel like man, that exercise would do me so good to actually sit down and cut out all of the teachings that Jesus has about prayer and then read them for myself. But the good thing is, is he actually goes through this quite a bit in this chapter. He says, "For example, I realized when I did this Jesus and his disciples never prayed if it be thy will. If it's your will God, do this." He said, "They knew what should be done. They were walking in the Holy Spirit. So when they encountered a situation, they knew what his will was."
He also gives beautiful examples of prayer, incorporating your children in a prayer. There's this one particular example of praying with childlike faith in the book. It blows me away every time I read it. But basically, there's this little girl. And he was called to these people's houses to pray for her. And he talks about using your imagination, that our imagination is a God-given gift. And it really helps open the door to our faith. That's why childlike prayers are so amazing because their imaginations are so vivid and their faith is so activated because they can visualize the answers to these prayers. And really, really believe that God will do it.
So he said there's this little girl who was sick. And she had a older brother who was four years old. And he said, "I knew that children have the ability to pray and have faith, like nothing else I've ever seen." So he called the little boy over. He said, "Hey, can we just picture that as we lay our hands on your baby sister and we pray for, her that Jesus is in this room with us and that he's coming over here and laying his hands on her too? Do you believe that?" And he was like, “Yeah," like wide-eyed. Yes.
He said, "Okay. So we pray, we're just going to believe that Jesus puts his hands right on top of ours, and we're going to pray for her to get better." And he said in the book that the very next morning, the little girl woke up well. And I have chills telling that story. You've got to go read it for yourself in the book. But praying in boldness and in faith is how Jesus taught us to pray.
So I love all the examples. I love the challenge of prayer in that chapter. And I feel personally that I probably need to read it five times, but that that was one of the biggest challenges that I took away from this book.
Fasting
Okay. Fasting. The inward discipline of fasting. Listen, I feel like this is hard in our culture today. Because we are told we've got to eat three square meals a day, eat breakfast every day. We have to eat snacks. And if we don't, we are on the verge of starvation. And the truth is, is that's just not true. The primary purpose of fasting is to center ourselves on God, not on our needs. It is to deny our flesh and really reorient our lives to the spiritual and cry out to God. As we feel hungry, and as we feel our flesh wanting these satisfactions, we turn our hearts and our minds to God to get satisfied.
So the whole primary purpose is just to center on God. The secondary purpose, there's a lot of secondary purposes and benefits that come out of fasting. But it reveals what controls us. It helps us focus and feast on God's word. It helps us focus on what's essential. It increases our effectiveness in prayer, guidance and decisions, increased concentration, deliverance for those in bondage, physical wellbeing. I mean, it says in scripture, God rewards those who diligently seek him. And fasting is a way to diligently seek him.
I don't think that fasting is super normal for the individual or the family in today's church. We rarely talk about it. But I look back in scripture and Jesus always said when you fast. And Jesus fasted regularly, and so did the disciples. So I do think that it is something that we would do well to embrace as a regular part of our lives.
I remember having a history teacher in high school. I clearly went to a Christian school, and she fasted every Monday. And I will never forget that. It's hard to fast. It's uncomfortable to fast, but it really does I think tune your spirit to what God is saying and doing in your life because you're constantly reminded to turn towards him.
Study
The last inward discipline is study. Study, it's interesting because I think of school. I think of studying for a test or a quiz. But of course, they're talking here about learning about God and learning about his word. Foster says, "Study is a specific kind of experience in which through careful attention to reality, the mind is enabled to move in a certain direction." He said, "This is where real transformation and breakthrough takes place." Because in Romans 12:2, we learned that we are transformed by the renewal of our minds. And that's what study is. It is devoting our mind to truth. The purpose of study is freedom. The knowledge edge of truth will set us free. The word says, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
So study again I think is something that we lack a lot today in our individual lives and in our corporate lives. We want something easy. We just want a sermon on Sunday morning, but deep study is not a normal practice in our lives. But that's truly where freedom comes in.
He says, "There's four steps to study. First is repetition. Second is concentration. Third is comprehension. And fourth is reflection." You can study books, kind of like I'm talking about in this podcast episode now. You can study three reality of the world around you just looking at God's creation and his beauty. You can study business, you can study how things work. But of course, you always want to make sure you're studying scripture. The more we learn and the more God gives us tools of scripture, and just the world around us, and how things work, the more we experience understanding and freedom. I just love the phrase. I'm sure you've heard it. "You're always a student." And I think that's what the heart of this is., we're always a student. We're always a student learning about God. We're always a student learning about scripture. We're always a student learning about the world around us, things around us. That's why I love this book club and why reading is such an important part of my life, is because there are ways that other people will study the Bible and then write about it in a book. And I will gain insight from their studies as well. So studying is something that brings freedom, and it brings truth, and it transforms your mind and really sets you free. Super important inward discipline.
Simplicity
Okay, let's move to the outward disciplines. The first one is simplicity.
The first time I read this, I was like, "What do you mean? What do you mean simplicity as an outward discipline?" And he goes through and he explains it. I love his explanation of it. He talks about simplicity being a freedom that brings joy and balance to your life. First, he addresses the inner simplicity. And this is something I desperately need to work on. Just embracing an inner simplicity of mind and heart. And then he addresses the outer simplicity in which the way you live your life. I think we talk about this a lot just kind of like a fad or whatever it is. We've realized as a culture, having too much stuff weighs us down. So there's minimalism, there's decluttering. But he talks about it in a biblical perspective. This outer simplicity is really all about contentment.
So he warns against the two different sides of simplicity. You don't want to go too far on one side, which is having too much stuff, putting all your hope in wealth and riches. So the Bible clearly warns against that.
But then also, you don't want to fall to the other side, which is, I think, I don't know how to pronounce it. Asceticism. Basically, it's doing without. It's like a monk, or like just totally vowing to not own any possessions and living so minimalist, you don't even enjoy things. He said, "You don't want to be obsessed with riches, and wealth, and stuff. And you also don't want to be so far on the other side of doing without. You want to find simplicity." He says, "Simplicity is the only thing that reorients our lives so that possessions can be genuinely enjoyed without destroying us. Simplicity sets us free to receive the provision of God as a gift that's not ours. And to keep, keep it, enjoy it. And it can be freely shared with others."
I think about my Contentment Challenge. And I think really, the Contentment Challenge came from this concept. And what I realized is I saw in my own life, I was leaning way far towards the side of materialism. Had too much stuff, was really dependent on my Amazon Prime, Target, just getting those hits of something. Or Instagram, something I saw cute on Instagram that I wanted. All those things that I just feel like it was too much stuff in my life. So I had to go through a time of almost fasting, to give up shopping for three months, which is my Contentment Challenge—to reset and get back to simplicity.
But the goal after the Contentment Challenge, it's never to stay in that asceticism state of renouncing possessions. No, the goal is to return to simplicity. It is to return to not being too materialistic and not denying myself of shopping or possessions. It is to get back to a healthy perspective of my stuff and my belongings. And I just feel like this chapter outlines that and says that so beautifully as an outward discipline.
Solitude
The next outward discipline he talks about is solitude. Jesus calls us from loneliness to solitude. Loneliness and solitude are not the same thing. Because loneliness feels empty and sad, but solitude is actually very fulfilling. He says it's a state of mind and heart. And we talked about this a little bit in my episode on Digital Minimalism, how there is a lack of solitude in our culture today. But it's basically a state where we don't listen to the input of other people's minds. So no podcasts, no books, no reading. It literally is just a state of being silent and being alone, and not really listening to anything other than the Lord's voice and your own thoughts.
Jesus was the perfect example of this. Over, and over, and over again in his life, he went to a lonely place to pray. That's what it says in scripture. He wasn't lonely. He was very fulfilled by it, but he went to a place where no one else was around, and he would pray, and he would be by himself. He would spend time in silence and solitude.
So I love this chapter because as a mom, I'm sitting here like, "Okay, this is great. There's no possible way that I can practice solitude or silence." Literally, I was woken up this morning at 6:20 with my three-year-old crying out for me to come upstairs and wipe her. So there's a little dose of reality. It's like literally, I had planned to wake up early and spend time with the Lord. And she even beat me to my alarm clock. This is just not my life right now with little kids.
But, this chapter challenged me because it said guess what? You can take advantage of little solitudes throughout the day. It doesn't have to be this perfect experience. You can actually practice this throughout the day.
It's just a choice for me to not pop headphones in and put in a podcast.
It's a choice for me to wait quietly in line at the grocery store and listen to the Lord. It's a choice for me to not bring out my phone and look at Instagram, but instead to practice solitude.
But he does talk about the value of creating a solitude spot, specifically for practicing silence and solitude, for quieting yourself. Whether it's a spot in your local library, or a spot on a trail near your house, or a spot even in your house that you know is quiet a certain time of day.
And I love this line. The whole purpose of solitude. He says, "Let's discipline ourselves so our words are few and full." Solitude allows that to happen, quiets ourselves, helps us to be really intentional about what we're listening to and what we say.
Submission or self-denial
So let's talk about the next outward discipline, which is submission. Submission or self-denial means the freedom to give way to others. It means to hold others' interests above our own interests. In this way, it releases us from self-pity. So he points to the verse in the Bible that says leadership is being the servant of all. If you want to be the first, you have to be the last. We submit to God, we submit to scripture, we submit to our family, we submit to our neighbors and others we meet, we submit to the body of Christ or spiritual authority. We submit to the broken and despised. As believers, we submit to the widows and orphans, the helpless, the undefended. We love them. And we even submit to the world. Not its ways, not its teachings, but we simply submit to the fact that we are part of an international community and we can't live in isolation. And finally, we submit to authority, which I think is something that our generation and the upcoming generation struggles with. And it's important to the heart of a believer to submit to authority.
So mission is not the kind of thing we want to hear about a lot. But it is an outward discipline that actually brings a lot of joy and a lot of life to our lives. I love what he says in that it releases us from self-pity. When that's our choice. it releases us from self-pity.
Which is a great transition to the next discipline, outward discipline of service. We as believers are called to serve. To serve in our churches, to serve in ministry, to serve in the marketplace, in the world, in our work. To serve our friends by being a listening ear. To serve our families. To serve my husband, to serve my kids. And there's this paragraph. When I reread it, it was really underlined and starred, because this is the same copy that I had in 12th grade 15 years ago. And there's a paragraph in there.
It talks about the difference between choosing to serve, and the difference between choosing to be a servant. He says, "When we choose to serve, we're still in charge. We decide whom we will serve and when we will serve." But when we take on the form of a servant just like Jesus did, we give up our right to be in charge. And there's such freedom in that. We don't have the right to feel sorry for ourselves because someone took advantage of us. If we have chosen to be a servant.
So that's challenging. Really challenging. I feel like I have very far to go with that. But it was really, I don't know, thought provoking. And it helped me to look at things in a new way in my life, which I thought was really convicting.
Okay. Let's move on to the corporate disciplines. Four more. You're doing great, hanging in there. I'm telling you, this is dense. There is a lot. There is a lot in this book, but I felt like it was worth sharing a little bit about each.
Confession
Okay. The first corporate discipline is confession. Now he said, "You might wonder, why did I put this as a corporate discipline? It's kind of a private thing. It's between you and the Lord." And he says, "You know what? It is a private thing. It is a personal thing between you and the Lord. And, it's a corporate discipline between you and other members of God's family." So First Timothy 2:5 says, "There's one mediator between God and men. The man Jesus Christ. He is our mediator. He is the one who forgives our sins. He is the one who hears our confessions." And James 5:16 also says, "Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another."
Now this isn't easy. Because usually, I see everybody around me in church as holier than me, more advanced, I don't really want them to know my stuff. They're more advanced in their faith. It's just painful and hard to reveal my failures and my sin to somebody, to air out all my dirty laundry. It doesn't really feel good. Don't really want to do that.
But I will tell you what. In my own experience, when my sin remains hidden and secretive, it has power. And as soon as I have confessed it to a friend or someone trusted in the body of Christ, as embarrassing or shameful as it may be, that power is broken, because light pours into the darkness and the healing can start. There is something incredibly powerful about confessing your sin.
He gives counsel in this chapter about the best way to confess, who to confess to, how to do it. He also gives counsel about receiving a confession from someone else and how to receive that. And one of the points he makes is never receive of confession without also praying for that person. And I love that encouragement. But confession is an incredibly important corporate discipline.
Worship
The second discipline he talks about is worship. He opens the chapter with to worship is to experience reality. To touch life. It is to know, to feel, to experience the resurrected Christ in the midst of gathered community. I love that. Scripture says God is actively seeking those who worship in spirit and in truth. Worship is an act that simply places God on the throne of our hearts. We reorient ourselves, our minds, our hearts, our lives to him. We call him who he is. We've worshiped him. And the focus is not on ourselves. And he says, "Worship should come first, worship should be the first thing. And then service should come second after that, because service without worship is idolatry."
So what does worship look like? It looks like practicing God's presence daily, singing songs, worshiping throughout our life, experiences every single day, worshiping him alone." You can worship in a small group, like just the size of your family. You can worship him in church. A benefit that you could practice, which I love this advice in the book is just spend some time the night before church to prepare your heart for worship. Have a little bit of time seeking the Lord. Let go of your inner distractions so that you can really engage and participate, and be more aware of God's presence.
Worship helps us lay down our individual agenda. It helps cultivate utter dependency on God. And it's an opportunity, I love this, to absorb distractions with gratitude. Okay, this is something I really need to work on. But he gives the example, "Listen, if kids are running around distracting you, crying." In worship, you can say, "Thank you Lord for these children," you can bless the Lord for them. And not just kids, any distraction in your life. If your plans are kind of thrown out the window because something comes up in your life, worship turns those problems and distractions into an opportunity for gratitude. And the more you do this, the more you become willing to just relax with all the distractions of life. I feel like I'm raising my hand like I need that for sure. I need that perspective of worship. It is a sacrifice because we don't always feel like worshiping, but it's a sacrifice that is pleasing to the heart of God. Worship I think just touches everything we do. It can touch everything we do, every aspect of our lives if we let it. Similar to meditation, I think those two go hand in hand.
Guidance
Okay. The next corporate discipline is guidance. So I thought this was really interesting. He talks about yes, we need all different kinds of guidance in our life. We need the individual, Holy Spirit led guidance for decisions we're making, for next steps in our life or something that we are wrestling with individually. But there's also a need for corporate guidance. It's not really talked about very much. But he says, "God leads the individual richly and profoundly, but he also guides groups of people and can instruct the individual through the group experience."
And I'm always, always seeking God for my individual needs and my need for guidance, and mothering my children, and being a wife in my work. What should I do next Lord? I pray about this podcast. I want him to guide me in what I'm sharing.
But this next sentence really challenged me. He said, "Perhaps the preoccupation with private guidance in Western culture is the product of their emphasis upon individualism. The people of God have not always been so." And then he talks about how God led the children of Israel out of bondage. And when Jesus came, God gathered and led his new church corporately as a group.
So in our own lives with big decisions, it's important to not just incorporate the individual Holy Spirit led guidance, which is good, and is true, and should be part of your life. But it's also important to just kind of zoom out and look at the body of Christ and say, "How is God speaking to us corporately as a community?" In times past there's been 'spiritual directors.' He talks about that, which I feel like we don't really use that phrase anymore. It kind of feels weird to me to have a spiritual director. I think the more applicable term today would be having a mentor or someone that's discipling you. And I think that's good. And I think that that's important and needs to be part of our lives. I've had this deep desire recently just to be mentored by somebody. And I think that's how God meant it to be. He put that in our hearts. It's important to remain in unity and under the leadership of the Holy Spirit. So guidance is this corporate discipline, I think is just where we get together. We ask God to lead us. It happens individually and it happens corporately as the body of Christ.
Celebration
Okay. We're wrapping up here. this has been a longer episode, but it's been good. Thank you for hanging with me. This last discipline is beautiful. This last corporate discipline is the discipline of celebration. Celebration is how the Lord entered the world. "I bring you good news of great joy, which shall be to all people." And it's how he left the world. Jesus said, "These things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full."
Back in the Old Testament, you can see this. There is the year of Jubilee, which included the canceling of all debts, the releasing of all slaves, planting, no crops. It's a year of rest. Returning the property, all property to its original owner. It was a huge celebration of the gracious provision of God. It's like a reset year. Just a giant celebration of God's goodness and provision. It was to demonstrate that God could be trusted to provide what they need.
I just love that. I love that example, that this is how mankind has been living for thousands and thousands of years. It's important to stop and to celebrate. Celebration in our day-to-day life just brings joy. I mean we're coming up on the holidays, and it's so sweet to just celebrate this year, and all the crazy things that are happening, to celebrate Immanuel God with us. Celebrate all of the good things that we have in our life. And celebration and joy, it makes us strong. Nehemiah 8:10 says, "The joy of the Lord is our strength." Celebration is central to every single one of the disciplines we've talked about.
I love this. Author says,
"Without celebration, the disciplines are dull, death breathing tools in the hands of modern Pharisees."
We have to have celebration. We have to have joy. Joy is part of the fruit of the spirit. And he says, "Every disciple should be characterized by carefree gaiety and a sense of thanks-giving." I love that. And it challenges me. Is that how people think of me? Is that really how people think of me? Because God has given me joy and I need to live in that.
He says, "The most important benefit of celebration is that it saves us from taking ourselves too seriously. Of all the people, we should be the most free, the most alive, the most interesting. Celebration adds a note of gaiety, festivity, and hilarity to our lives."
So he goes into practical details. How do we celebrate? And he says, "Be loud, dance, sing, laugh, learn from children." If anybody knows how to celebrate, children know how to celebrate. Join them in what they're doing. Celebrate others, celebrate their creativity and what they're doing. Throw parties. Make your own festival. Even just as a family, come up with a little play that your kids can do, or a singalong. Just celebrate. Celebrate big with others, celebrate small in your own heart. Cultivate gratitude. I know that's cliché—we hear it all the time.
But listen to this.
He says, "If we fill our lives with the simple, good things, and constantly thank God for them, we will be joyful."
That is full of joy. And what about our problems? When we determine to dwell on the good and excellent things in life, we will be so full of those things that they will tend to swallow our problems. The decision to set the mind on the higher things of life is an act of the will. That is why celebration is a discipline.
It is a mindset that we have to embrace. And it's also something that we can physically do with our families. And I get so excited about this right now because here are at the end of this really difficult, hard year. And we have the opportunity to still celebrate. As believers, Jesus came. He came. Immanuel God with us. He saved us. This has been a crazy year, but we have so much to be thankful for.
And I couldn't think of a better way to close this podcast episode than reading this paragraph.
"When the power that is in Jesus reaches into our work and play and redeems them, there will be joy where once there was mourning. To overlook this is to miss the meaning of the incarnation."
Now quickly, I want to share my three takeaways from the book.
my three takeaways
Number one is that our relationship with the Lord, it goes two ways. Jesus has done everything for us. I mean he came, what did they say? He came 99% of the way. We only have to go 1%. He's done it all to make himself available to us. So to me, these disciplines are simple ways that we can demonstrate our love for the Lord and go that 1% to get closer to him and deepen our relationship with him.
My second takeaway, if I can be honest, is that I have so far to go. So far to go. I read this book 15 years ago for the first time. And so many of these disciplines feel very far from my life if I'm honest. But rather than being discouraged by that, I am so encouraged to know I have an entire lifetime and all of eternity to continue to discover the heart of God.
And my third takeaway is the day that we are living in right now is just rampant with superficiality and surface living. It's focused on materialism and comfort, and whatever makes life easier. And to a lot of people, these disciplines are not going to be well received or welcomed in our lives, because they are basically in direct opposition to the messages that we hear everyday in our culture.
But I don't want an easy life. And if walking closer to God means for me to be hungry and uncomfortable, and to pour out my sins and failures to someone else and to submit, to serve, and focus on God through worship, and study, and meditation, and guidance, so be it. That is the life that I want. I want to hear his voice. I want to know him. Because if you know him, then just like I do, the celebration and joy in knowing his heart and who he is, is absolutely worth it.
Thank you for hanging in there. This has been a long episode. I'm so grateful for you, because I think it was worth it. And I think diving deeper in this book and the content of this book is worth it. And like I said, if you haven't actually read this book, go ahead and put it on your Christmas list, ask for it next year, go ahead and just go to the show notes and buy it yourself. Because truly, it is a life changing book. It's so challenging. It's something you can read over, and over, and over, and always get something new out of. So good.
Also don't forget go check out all the details about my books for the 2021 Book Club. I always try to choose a variety of books, covering topics from home, faith, and work. I review my top three takeaways from each book here in the podcast every month. And it's just a great way to keep up with reading and to read alongside each other.
Work and Play Cornerstore
Now, it's time for the Work and Play Cornerstore, which is where I share a book I'm loving and a thing I'm loving. I'll get a small commission for anything bought through these links, which help me to continue to bring this podcast to you every week. But the price is normal for you, so it's a win-win.
For the Cornerstore today, I'm going to keep it very simple and I'm only going to be adding this book to my Amazon affiliate store.
But I feel like, you know what? This book is so good, it's a standalone. This is all I'm going to add today. The Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster.
I'm going to close with words from Richard Foster, who says,
"The purpose of the disciplines is freedom. Our aim is the freedom, not the discipline. The moment we make the discipline our central focus, we turn it into law, and lose the corresponding freedom."
I pray that this book, that this podcast episode will bring a little bit more freedom into your life. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you next time.
