Have you ever heard of the Puritans? Most of us hear them slandered at some point early in our gradeschool studies of American History. If you are a Christian, you need to know that the Puritans in actuality have a lot to teach us...even if we've sometimes gasped at the strictness of their piety.
A couple of great resources you might want to check out are:
The Valley of Vision - This resource is basically a collection of Puritan prayers and devotions. Arthur Bennet put them together after combing through the writings and journals of people like John Bunyan, Thomas Watson, Richard Baxter, Isaac Watts, Charles Spurgeon, and others.
A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life by J.I. Packer.
Also noteworthy:
Worldly Saints: The Puritans As They Really Were by Leland Ryken.
The Devoted Life: An Invitation to the Puritan Classics. This title says it all.
I'll give you an example of a Puritan prayer from Valley of Vision entitled "Spiritual Growth"
O THOU MOST HIGH,
In the way of thy appointment I am waiting for thee,
My desire is to thy name,
My mind to remembrance of thee.
I am a sinner, but not insensible of my state.
My iniquities are great and numberless,
but thou art adequate to my relief,
for thou art rich in mercy;
the blood of thy Son can cleanse from all sin;
the agency of thy Spirit can subdue
my most powerful lusts.
Give me a tender, wakeful conscience
that can smite and torment me when I sin.
May I be consistent in conversation and conduct,
the same alone as in company,
in prosperity and adversity,
accepting all thy commandments as right,
and hating every false way.
May I never be satisfied with my present spiritual progress,
but to faith add virtue, knowledge, temperance,
godliness, brotherly kindness, charity.
May I never neglect
what is necessary to constitute Christian character,
and needful to complete it.
May I cultivate the expedient,
develop the lovely, adorn the gospel,
recommend the religion of Jesus,
accomodate myself to thy providence.
Keep me from sinking or sinning in the evil day;
Help me to carry into ordinary life
portions of divine truth
and use them on suitable occasions, so that
its doctrines may inform,
its warnings caution,
its rules guide,
its promises comfort me.
The language and word choices may not be all that current for our context today; but surely the heart of the prayer is as relevant and appropriate for our context today as ever.
-RCW
Well, 2009 has come and gone and evidently, my informants ESPN alerted me a few days ago (with their "top ten plays of the decade" and whatnot) that a decade has drawn to a close. This of course should not have been news to me, but somehow my silly brain was imagining that it would be another year (at the completion of 2010) that such a "turn-of-the-page" would come. Seeing as how I have only lived through a couple of these decade things, and seeing as how the last one changed when I was all of 18, I am hit with the magnitude of the occasion.
Not wanting to let the moment slip by without sneaking in a quick line, I worked to squeeze in time for a post.
I have spoken before of how the Christian life---from our birth, to our spiritual birth or conversion, and throughout our entire life until our dying day---is a process. It is a spiritual journey in which God is drawing us closer to Himself. We may not always understand how or why or that it is even happening, but for Christians walking with God, He is perfecting us all the while and transforming us back into the image-bearers He meant for us to be...in the image of Christ. I have written about this subject (sanctification) previously.
With that spiritual and theological reality firmly in mind, let me ask you----could you adequately map your spiritual journey in words or art or music or a line graph or some medium of the sort? What if you reflected on where God has brought you, what He has done in you, what He has transformed about you and when by the decade? Where were you spiritually in the early 80s? What changed about your faith by the mid 90s? What did God do in your life by 2000 or by the time you had children, etc? This is a spiritual journey and it is important (even very Hebrew) to walk forward through life looking backwards over your shoulder and recalling the great things that God has done. This reflection is also healthy, deeply rewarding, and often humbling. It also happens to be a marvelous spiritual exercise to start any new year.
Have a happy one!
-RCW
P.S. One of the astonishing things about this sort of activity is that you may at times be tempted to think that you had certain times or years when you were far from God or that you felt distant from Him. Let me encourage you that it is often in our lowest and bleakest of states that God is doing the most refining and bringing about the most spiritual growth in our lives. If I were to graph the spiritual "valleys" of my life, I doubt very much if God would chart them as valleys...to Him they might be mountaintops. For it is when we are weakest---when we must lean most closely upon Him for everything---that His power is perfected in us. To adapt some words from A.W. Tozer: "Before God can use a man greatly, He has to break a man deeply."
P.P.S. For you theology dorks like me out there, Wayne Grudem provides a good spiritual growth graph of this sort in his Systematic Theology in the section on sanctification.
Not wanting to let the moment slip by without sneaking in a quick line, I worked to squeeze in time for a post.
I have spoken before of how the Christian life---from our birth, to our spiritual birth or conversion, and throughout our entire life until our dying day---is a process. It is a spiritual journey in which God is drawing us closer to Himself. We may not always understand how or why or that it is even happening, but for Christians walking with God, He is perfecting us all the while and transforming us back into the image-bearers He meant for us to be...in the image of Christ. I have written about this subject (sanctification) previously.
With that spiritual and theological reality firmly in mind, let me ask you----could you adequately map your spiritual journey in words or art or music or a line graph or some medium of the sort? What if you reflected on where God has brought you, what He has done in you, what He has transformed about you and when by the decade? Where were you spiritually in the early 80s? What changed about your faith by the mid 90s? What did God do in your life by 2000 or by the time you had children, etc? This is a spiritual journey and it is important (even very Hebrew) to walk forward through life looking backwards over your shoulder and recalling the great things that God has done. This reflection is also healthy, deeply rewarding, and often humbling. It also happens to be a marvelous spiritual exercise to start any new year.
Have a happy one!
-RCW
P.S. One of the astonishing things about this sort of activity is that you may at times be tempted to think that you had certain times or years when you were far from God or that you felt distant from Him. Let me encourage you that it is often in our lowest and bleakest of states that God is doing the most refining and bringing about the most spiritual growth in our lives. If I were to graph the spiritual "valleys" of my life, I doubt very much if God would chart them as valleys...to Him they might be mountaintops. For it is when we are weakest---when we must lean most closely upon Him for everything---that His power is perfected in us. To adapt some words from A.W. Tozer: "Before God can use a man greatly, He has to break a man deeply."
P.P.S. For you theology dorks like me out there, Wayne Grudem provides a good spiritual growth graph of this sort in his Systematic Theology in the section on sanctification.
Discipleship,
Encouragement,
Faith,
Growing,
Journaling,
New Year's,
On Life,
Sanctification
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comments (2)
I already said that I occasionally have people inquire of me -- either as a new believer or for another new believer -- where they should start to begin growing. I already said in my previous post what my first bit of advice would be.
My next bit of advice would be this:
To be continued...
-RCW
My next bit of advice would be this:
- Start a journal. You can write anything in it. Prayers, goals, recording the events of your day, experiences, scriptures, quotes, poems, lists, or anything you think belongs in it that relates to your spiritual life, etc.
- Also, as you begin reading the Bible, tackle the topic(s) that you find most intriguing, most important, most urgent in your own life. As a new believer (or as an "old" one!), if you think of a question you have about the Bible or about faith, or about Christianity, write it down in your journal and record the date by it. Then, make it your resolution to hunt and pursue the answer. Become relentless in your pursuit of the truth. Chase after understanding. The book of Proverbs instructs us to do so. (See Prov. 4:7 among many others) How do you find the answer? Here are some simple suggestions:
- Pray. You just can't underestimate the power of prayer. Jesus Himself says this: "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?" [I imagine this would have been humorous to those listening...and brace yourself: Jesus may have even chuckled as He said it!]. He continues, "If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him!" (Mt. 7:7-11 NIV). Elsewhere He tells his disciples (and by extension us as well) that the Holy Spirit will lead us into all truth (John 16:13).
- Ask someone you know to be a person who studies their Bible, loves God, and loves others. Maybe that is your pastor, maybe that is a friend or Bible teacher. Maybe you need to email a Bible professor or search out a Christian book on the topic.
- Keep reading and praying. Jesus was teaching about prayer one time and used a story to communicate the importance of persistence in our prayer. Imagine that...God wants us to continually come to Him in prayer even when we don't get our answer immediately. The story by the way can be found in Luke 18:1-8 or you can just click here to read it.
- Study. This is tough to stomach in our culture. We want answers with no searching, results with no effort, secret formulas and quick fixes at no cost. Sometimes growing in our faith and pursuing Christ does not accommodate our laziness. Thankfully, there are some great Bible study aids online. You can access a few by clicking here, here, or here.
- If after all this, for some unknown reason you still can't find an answer to your question, you can email me or you can go find your answer here (though not everyone has the flexibility to do this last one).
How pleasing it must be to God when we seek to know Him and understand His ways. All human knowledge points to Him, the knowledge giver. For as Paul says, "in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Colossians 2:3). I too am still on that journey...the journey of discovery and the pursuit of truth. After a while, we are always hit with the realization that Ultimate Truth (with a capital "T") is a person, namely Jesus Christ, the Alpha and Omega.
To be continued...
-RCW
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