Ordinary Spiritual Disciplines

I grew up going to a few different camp meetings, and Northern New England camp meeting at Pine Tree Academy is probably my favorite. A couple years ago I was able to attend for the whole week. In the young adult tent the theme of the messages was spiritual disciplines. We spent each day discussing different ways we could worship Jesus. There were days dedicated to prayer, solitude, Bible study, music, and even forgiveness. It was an amazing week of spirituality, and I felt closer to Jesus by the last day. 

As I read the memory verse for this week’s lesson, I thought of spiritual disciplines again, but in a different way. “Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). If glorifying God includes both acts of worship (and I think David emphasizes that in many of his psalms) and food, then what else can be considered a spiritual discipline, a way to be closer to Jesus? 

I believe that not only can we glorify God through the simple tasks we complete, but that with the right attitude, they themselves can be ways in which we worship and communicate with Him, just like any other spiritual discipline. 

“Peeling a Spud”

One of my favorite movies is called Chariots of Fire. It’s the true story of Eric Liddell, a Scottish missionary and runner in the 1924 Olympics. Eric was a Christian who worshipped on Sunday, and when he found out that one of his races was scheduled on a Sunday, he refused to run. Thankfully, one of his teammates offered to swap with Eric, and Eric ended up winning a gold medal.

Leading up to the games, Eric faced serious turmoil surrounding his decision to run. He came from a missionary family, and his sister desperately wanted him to return to China, where he had grown up. At first he wasn’t sure if he should continue running. In a conversation with his older brother and father he expressed his concerns, and his father said something that I’ve remembered often: “You can praise the Lord by peeling a spud if you peel it to perfection.” His father’s point was that Eric could glorify God by running if he gave it his all. It could become a way of worship and service, just as serving in the mission field would be. 

Tabitha’s Example

In Acts 9 Tabitha (Dorcas), a disciple living in Joppa around the time of Paul’s conversion, died. Her church members begged Peter to come. When he arrived, they gathered around him, and “all the widows stood around him, crying and showing him the robes and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was still with them” (Acts 9:39, NIV). She made them clothes, and that’s how she served: through a simple act. And she continued to glorify God after Peter raised her from the dead.

Jesus’ Example

Jesus also shows us how He honored His Father in ordinary ways. 

His first miracle was at a wedding that He attended with His friends. Normal. Fun. Wholesome.

When He washed their feet in the upper room, yes, it was very symbolic, but it also was just a practical way to get their feet clean. The surprising thing wasn’t that their feet were being washed—that was normal and expected—it was that He was the one to do it.

He instructed people to simplify their traditional spiritual disciplines. “But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that your charitable deed may be in secret. . . . When you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place” (Matt. 6:3-6).

Whether you work as a landscaper or a church treasurer, you can glorify God in your work.

In Matthew 22:37-40 He summarized and simplified how we are to frame our worldview and values when He said to love God with all our heart and to love our neighbors as ourselves. That same concept is echoed in 1 Corinthians 10:24: “Let no one seek his own, but each one the other’s well-being.”

Jesus boiled everything down to love and unselfishness. That’s what glorifies God. Whether He ate or drank, whatever He did, it was all to the glory of God. 

So how can we glorify God in what we do? How does this translate for us? 

Work as a Spiritual Discipline

I believe that one easy way to implement this is in the workplace. Jesus glorified His Father while He worked, so we can too. 

Whether you work as a landscaper or a church treasurer, you can glorify God in your work. He wants us to take (healthy) pride in what we do. But it’s not easy; there’s a delicate balance to strike. On one hand, we can be too indifferent about our job, not take any pride in it, and then we won’t perform in the way that God would want us to. Laziness, apathy, and lack of care will drown out the ambition we could have had. 

But on the other hand, if we end up taking too much pride in what we do, if we don’t attribute our skill to the One who entrusted it to us, and if we lose sight of Him, we’ll end up victims of another study point of this lesson: idolatry. We’ll idolize our work, it will become our identity, we won’t be able to separate our responsibilities from our spirituality, and we’ll drown in the very thing that we should be pleasing God with. The spiritual discipline of work could morph into a distraction that would cause us to lose focus on whom we should be glorifying.

Keep Him in mind as you work, just as you would for any other spiritual discipline. Prioritize Him, glorify Him. 

“To Honor Him”

In Chariots of Fire Eric has a conversation with his sister, Jennie, and tells her that he’ll return to the mission field and meet her—but only after he runs in the Olympics. “I believe that God made me for a purpose; for China. But he also made me fast,” he tells her excitedly. “And when I run, I feel His pleasure. To give [running] up would be to hold Him in contempt. You were right; it’s not just fun. To win is to honor Him.”

Therefore, whatever you’re eating or drinking, whether you make clothes or wash feet or work for the church or in a law firm, whether you’re weeding a garden or dusting a cabinet of knick-knacks, whether you run races or peel potatoes, do it for His glory. 

Do all to the glory of God.