This sermon written and delivered by Tim Basselin.

God chose the summer of 1996 to begin teaching me about spiritual disciplines. After my sophomore year of college, I moved across the country and worked at a national park. One of the two books I took with me was Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline, which has a chapter for 12 different disciplines. I had read the book for a class, but it wasn’t the kind of book that works well in a classroom setting. I wanted to not just understand the disciplines, but to begin making them habits in my life. So I decided to give each discipline plenty of space to breathe. I wanted to read one chapter and then practice that discipline until it became a habit before I moved on to the next chapter. I didn’t have a lot else to do, so I thought spending 10, 15, 20 hours a week practicing a discipline would be enough to make a habit. So at about a week per chapter for 12 weeks, I should be able to finish the book that summer And be a very holy man by the end.

Well, mastering a spiritual discipline isn’t possible to do in a week. It’s also not really the point. I ended up spending 3-4 weeks on each discipline just to get a feel for it becoming like a habit. By the end of the summer I’d only made it through the first three chapters: meditation, prayer, and fasting. But coming to know those as some form of habit has been very significant in my life.

Let’s talk about spiritual disciplines and how they help train us to breathe deeply, taking in the oxygen of God’s good desires for the world.

Join us Sunday as we learn how spiritual practices prepare us to follow God’s call.

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