Book Notes: Celebration Of Discipline by Richard Foster

I can't say I'm not expecting a lot from this book, everyone from my closest friends to Mike Pilavachi has recommended it and it's been on my shelf since I got baptised over three and a half years ago. The title alone needs and deserves thought. The book I hope will not just give me a greater understanding of the Christian disciplines themselves but through them a more beautiful understanding and firmer grip of the relationship that I gracefully share with the God that created and saved me.

Not that by living the disciplines out I may earn favour with God; as Foster writes:

...human striving is insufficient and righteousness is a gift from God - but the [usual] conclusion is faulty. Happily there is something we can do. We do not need to be hung on the horns of dilemma of either human works or idleness. God has given us the disciplines of the spiritual life as a means of receiving his grace. The disciplines allow us to place ourselves before God so that He can transform us.

I expect nothing less than what he writes, not only that I learn the Christian disciplines but that in practicing them I will begin to understand their value, as Foster writes:

These are not a set of pious exercises for the devout, but a trumpet call to obedient living in a sin-racked world. They call us to wage peace in a world obsessed with war, to plead for justice in a world plagued with inequity, to stand with the poor and disinherited in a world that has forgotten its neighbour.

Meditation

In the midst of an exceedingly busy ministry Jesus made a habit of withdrawing to 'a lonely place apart'. He did this not just to be away from people, but so he could be with God.

Such evaluations are far from the mark. In fact, meditation is the one thing that can sufficiently redirect our lives so that we can deal with human life successfully. Thomas Merton writes, 'Meditation has no point and no reality unless it is firmly rooted in life.

Whereas the study of Scripture centres on exegesis, the meditation of Scripture centres on internalising and personalising the passage. The written Word becomes a living word addressed to you. This is no a time for technical studies, or analysis, or even the gathering of material to share with others. Set aside all tendencies toward arrogance and with a humble heart receive the word addressed to you.

Meditation is more a passive Discipline. It is characterised more by reflecting than by studying, more by listening than by thinking, more by realising than by grabbing. In the Discipline of meditation we are not so much acting as we are opening ourselves to be acted upon.