Practicing the Way

  • Author: John Mark Comer
  • Full Title: Practicing the Way
  • Tags: #Inbox #books

Highlights

  • the goal wasn’t to pass a test, get a degree, or receive a certificate to frame on your office wall; it was to master the art of living in God’s good world by learning from Jesus how to make steady progress into the kingdom of God. It was less like learning chemistry and more like learning jujitsu. (Location 372)
  • If disciple is something that is done to you (a verb),[25] then that puts the onus of responsibility for your spiritual formation on someone else, like your pastor, church, or mentor. But if disciple is a noun—if it’s someone you are or are not—then no one can “disciple” you but Rabbi Jesus himself. (Location 390)
  • For Jesus, salvation is less about getting you into heaven and more about getting heaven into you. (Location 512)
  • It seems the Western church has at times been more careful to avoid “works righteousness” than to avoid sin. (Location 541)
  • One way to paraphrase Jesus’ invitation to “follow me” is to say, “Adopt my overall way of life to experience the life I have on offer.” (Location 569)
  • You can grow into a person of happiness, even in times of great suffering. The kind of person who is not afraid of suffering or even of death, who is free of the emotional need for things to go your (Location 646)
  • Maybe you’re new to following Jesus and you’re thinking, Where do I even start? You start here, with goal #1: Be with Jesus. (Location 679)
  • All of us are abiding. The question isn’t, Are you abiding? It’s, What are you abiding in? All of us have a source we are rooted in, a kind of default setting we return to. An emotional home. It’s where our minds go when they’re not busy with tasks, where our feelings go when we need solace, where our bodies go when we have free time, and where our money goes after we pay the bills. (Location 716)
  • When you first come awake at the beginning of the day, where does your mind naturally go? When you lay your head on your pillow after a long, tiring day, what are your final thoughts as you drift off to sleep? (Location 764)
  • In the little moments of space throughout your day—waiting in line for your morning coffee, stuck in traffic, sitting down to a meal—where does your mind fall “without thinking” about it? (Location 766)
  • It’s to our wants and needs, our fears, our wounds—to negative rumination. “The undirected mind tends toward chaos.” The psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi called this phenomenon “psychic entropy.”[19] (Location 768)
  • And in Paul’s paradigm, this transformation happens as we “contemplate,” as we gaze, as we look at God, looking at us, in love. This simple, uncomplicated act has the potential to transform our inner lives and heal our deepest wounds in ways that more Bible study, church attendance, and even therapy (as good as those are) cannot possibly touch. (Location 891)
  • I will never forget when my spiritual director advised me, “John Mark, sit in your sin and let God love you.” He did not mean “Keep sinning and don’t feel guilty.” He meant “When you sin [and I will, as you will], don’t hide it from God. Hold it before God, with no excuses, no blame shifting, no denial, just utter vulnerability, and let God love you as you are. And then let God love you into who you have the potential to become.” (Location 900)
  • Jesus’ life template was based on a rhythm of retreat and return, like breathing in and then out. Jesus would retreat: He would slip away from the noise and press of the crowd and find a place where he could pray, alone or sometimes with a few very close friends. (Location 1007)
  • In Mark 1, we read, Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. (Location 1010)
  • Henri Nouwen once said, bluntly but accurately, Without solitude it is virtually impossible to live a spiritual life. (Location 1027)
  • There’s a legendary story about Nouwen going to ask Mother Teresa for spiritual direction (to be a fly on that wall…). Her advice was spartan: “Spend one hour a day in adoration of your Lord and never do anything that you know is wrong.”[64] (Location 1030)
  • “The number one problem you will face is time,” he said, because “most people are just too busy to live emotionally healthy and spiritually vibrant lives.”[69] (Location 1071)
  • “Spiritual formation is the slowest of all human movements.” (Location 1218)
  • The spiritual teacher Pete Scazzero once told me a maxim that was passed on to him by an older, wiser mentor: “The best decade of your life will be your seventies, the second best will be your eighties, and the third will be your sixties.” By best he did not mean the happiest (though I expect that too) but our richest and most joyful and helpful to others. (Location 1233)
  • Much of Christians’ current disillusionment over their lack of transformation is because they have never learned their part in spiritual formation. But our job isn’t to self-save; it’s to surrender. (Location 1249)
  • If you want to chart your progress on the spirituality journey, test the quality of your closest relationships—namely, by love and the fruit of the Spirit. Would the people who know you best say you are becoming more loving, joyful, and at peace? More patient and less frustrated? Kinder, gentler, softening with time, and pervaded by goodness? Faithful, especially in hard times, and self-controlled? (Location 1266)
  • Are you growing in love not just for your friends and family but for your enemies? When you are hurt, wounded, and treated unjustly (as we all are), are you finding yourself increasingly able to emotionally release the bitterness, to absorb the pain and not give it back in kind? (Location 1269)
  • If not, then no matter how well you know the Bible, how many books you read, how many insights you amass, or how many practices you build into your Rule of Life, you’re not on track. (Location 1274)
  • The professor Dr. Robert Mulholland defines spiritual formation as “a process of being formed into the image of Christ for the sake of others”[20] and harps on the “for the sake of others” piece. Without this crucial element, formation will inevitably devolve into a private, therapeutic self-help spirituality that is, honestly, just a Christianized version of radical individualism, not a crucible to burn our souls clean and forge us into people of love like Jesus. (Location 1292)
  • This, then, is spiritual formation: the process of being formed into a person of self-giving love through deepening surrender to and union with the Trinity. (Location 1317)
  • In fact, the gravity and inertia of life will likely take you in the opposite direction. “Small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it,” as Jesus said. (Location 1324)
  • Spiritual formation in the North American church is often truncated to this three-part formula: Go to church. Read your Bible and pray. Give. (Location 1337)

Losing strategy #1: Willpower

  • The problem with willpower isn’t that it’s bad (it’s not); it just doesn’t work very well. (Location 1381)
  • Small changes, like beginning your day by reading a psalm or cussing less, are usually within the realm of willpower. (Location 1385)

Losing strategy #2: More Bible study

  • A lot of churches operate on the assumption that as a person’s knowledge of the Bible increases, their maturity will increase with it. I have (Location 1399)

Losing strategy #3: The zap from heaven

  • That’s how many people approach spiritual formation: waiting for a “download” from heaven to radically change them in an instant. (Location 1427)
  • Until we come to see sin as far more than the breaking of judicial laws, we will likely remain stuck in whole-life dysfunction. (Location 1506)
  • salvation is what Christians call “confession.” Confession is a core practice of the Way, and contrary to what many think, it’s not at all about beating yourself up in public. It’s about courageously naming your woundedness and wickedness in the presence of loving community as you journey together toward wholeness. (Location 1531)
  • It’s highly likely that any working model of spiritual formation will bear all sorts of resemblance to AA,[43] with its three elements of (1) radical self-awareness, honesty, and confession, (2) total surrender to God’s power, and (3) a loving, tight-knit community to both love you and hold you accountable to becoming your true self. (Location 1539)
  • We are formed by at least three basic forces. (Location 1560)
  • #1 The stories we believe (Location 1561)
  • #2 Our habits (Location 1578)
  • We are little more than the cumulative effect of our regular habits. What we repeatedly do, we become. (Location 1580)
  • #3 Our relationships (Location 1588)
  • #1 Teaching (Location 1636)
  • “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us,”[51] because we become like our mental picture of God. (Location 1648)
  • For this reason, spiritual formation in the Way of Jesus begins with the healing of our false images of God. (Location 1651)
  • So, to counter the daily barrage of straight-up lies we receive from the world around us, as apprentices of Jesus we must, like good students, prioritize exposure to teaching and truth. There are all sorts of ways to do this: Reading Scripture Memorizing Scripture Studying the Bible Listening to sermons Listening to podcasts Reading books (Location 1654)
  • Meditating Just to name a few. (Location 1660)
  • Paul called this “the renewing of your mind,” and it is the linchpin of our formation. (Location 1661)
  • #2 The practices (Location 1665)
  • #3 Community (Location 1716)
  • Does the community call people up to a higher level of apprenticeship? Or does it devolve to the lowest common denominator of maturity (or immaturity)? (Location 1736)
  • No actual church can ever live up to the wish dream of an ideal church. So, people either give up on church entirely or settle into cynicism: “The church is a whore, but she’s my mother,” as the terrible saying goes. (Location 1741)
  • #4 The Holy Spirit (Location 1748)
  • #5 Over time (Location 1761)
  • So, how long someone has been following Jesus is a major factor in their maturity level, but so is how much time they give to Jesus in their daily life. (Location 1767)
  • #6 Through suffering (Location 1775)
  • Suffering is sadness leaving the body. (Location 1786)
  • Unfortunately, most Western Christians read the stories about Jesus, especially the miracle stories, not as a template for how to live but as “proof that Jesus was God.” (Location 1900)
  • So, when you read the miracle stories, don’t just think, Oh, well, Jesus was God. Yes, he was. But also think, Wow, this is what a real, true human being, walking in the power of the Spirit, is capable of. (Location 1930)
  • The spiritual writer Henri Nouwen once said Jesus’ life moved along a continuum from solitude to community to ministry. (Location 1952)
  • find it helpful to categorize Jesus’ ministry into three basic rhythms: Making space for the gospel Preaching the gospel Demonstrating the gospel (Location 1956)
  • Rhythm #1: Making space for the gospel (i.e., hospitality) (Location 1960)

Rhythm #2: Preaching the gospel

  • In our generation, the primary problem with evangelism isn’t that we’re doing it with bullhorns and low-grade bigotry; it’s that we’re not doing it at all. (Location 2050)
  • Everyone is preaching a “gospel.” The question is not, Are you preaching the gospel? It’s, What gospel are you preaching? (Location 2061)
  • #1 Offer hospitality Learn to cook, set the table, and build community. (Location 2099)
  • #2 Find where God is already working and join him (Location 2101)
  • #3 Bear witness (Location 2107)
  • We’re witnesses, not salespeople. Our job is not to “close the deal” with the right technique, but simply to bear witness to our life with Jesus. (Location 2113)
  • #4 “Do the stuff” (Location 2123)
  • #5 Live a beautiful life (Location 2133)
  • But if those in the churches really are enjoying fullness of life, evangelism will be unstoppable and largely automatic. (Location 2151)
  • You see, it’s easy for a lot of us (and I’m writing to myself here) to kind of fudge this part of our apprenticeship to Jesus. I’m down for formation, emotional health, contemplative prayer—sign me up. But preaching the gospel? I think I’ll just mow my neighbor’s lawn and hope they figure out Jesus rose from the dead. (Location 2163)
  • Rhythm #3: Demonstrating the gospel (Location 2175)
  • The way we turn our work from “marking time” into “ministry” isn’t by becoming a pastor or starting a nonprofit; it’s by doing whatever we do the way we imagine Jesus would do it if he were us—with skill, diligence, integrity, humility, the kingdom’s ethics, and so on. It’s also by doing our work very well. (Location 2311)
  • If you’re an entrepreneur, it’s by starting a well-run business that contributes to the common good. (Location 2317)
  • Is there something—anything—that you feel the Spirit of God stirring in your heart? A desire to do good? Not a guilt trip or sense of religious obligation to be more involved in this or that project, but an inner prompting of the heart to some small act of kindness? It’s highly likely that’s your joyous burden of love. It’s easy and light. Do it, and you will discover true happiness. (Location 2328)
  • “Nurturing a growing spirituality with depth in our present-day culture will require a thoughtful, conscious, intentional plan for our spiritual lives.”[1] (Location 2362)
  • You must arrange your days so that you are experiencing deep contentment, joy, and confidence in your everyday life with God. (Location 2369)
  • You have a way in which you live: a morning routine, a typical workday, a network of relationships, a budget, activities you spend your free time on, and so on. The question isn’t, Do you have a Rule of Life? It’s, Do you know what your Rule of Life is? And is it giving you the life you want? Is it working for you or against you? (Location 2422)
  • If your emotional life is off kilter, if you feel far from God, stressed, anxious, and chronically mad, and you’re not becoming more of a person of love, then the odds are that something about the system of your life is poorly designed. Because your life is the by-product of your lifestyle. The problem is not that your Rule of Life isn’t working, but that it is. (Location 2430)
  • Rule of Life must balance two sides of an emotional equation: It must guard, and it must guide. The Christian intellectual Andy Crouch beautifully defines a Rule of Life as “a set of practices to guard our habits and guide our lives.”[11] (Location 2450)
  • I used to weigh potential behaviors with the question, Is this sinful or not? But now that I better understand the gospel and its possibility of “life that is truly life” with Jesus, my new question is, Does this move me toward Jesus or away? (Location 2489)

Four things a good Rule will do for you

  • #1 It will help you turn vision into reality (Location 2501)
  • #2 It will help you experience peace as you live in alignment with your deepest desires (Location 2517)
  • There’s no one answer to this question, but the business consultant Stephen Covey once said, “We achieve inner peace when our schedule aligns with our values.” (Location 2520)
  • #3 It will help you live at the right pace (Location 2535)
  • #4 It will help you balance freedom and discipline (Location 2542)

The practices defined

  • #1 They are not a barometer of spiritual maturity (Location 2583)
  • I know some people who never miss a week of church, read through the entire Bible every year, and never watch R-rated movies (all good things) but who are still self-righteous, controlling, fueled by anger, blind to their own shadow, and, at times, incredibly unloving.[27] And I know others who are in a season of just trying to survive parenting little kids and barely getting ten minutes a day to pray. But tired as they may be, they are becoming more loving with each passing year. Love is the metric to pay attention to. (Location 2591)
  • #2 They are not a gloomy bore (Location 2596)
  • #3 They are not a form of merit (Location 2602)
  • #4 They are not the Christian version of virtue signaling (Location 2610)
  • #5 They are not a means of control (Location 2620)
  • The practices are disciplines based on the lifestyle of Jesus that create time and space for us to access the presence and power of the Spirit and, in doing so, be transformed from the inside out. (Location 2625)
  • A discipline is any activity I can do by direct effort that will eventually enable me to do what I currently cannot do by direct effort. (Location 2629)

The nine

#1 Sabbath

  • When I offer spiritual direction to people, I often begin by prescribing sleep, margin, time off work—rest. Because chronically exhausted, sleep-deprived, overbusy people are not loving, peaceful, and full of joy. (Location 2692)
  • Sabbath is an entire day of your week—one-seventh of your life—set aside to not only stop and rest but also delight in and worship the God who made you to be with himself. (Location 2696)

#2 Solitude

#3 Prayer
  • Talking to God—praying premade prayers like the psalms or liturgy, or singing prayers at church, and so on (Location 2723)
  • Talking with God—conversing with God about your life. Lifting up the details of your life before God with gratitude (talking to him about what is good in your life and world), lament (talking to him about what is evil in your life and world), and petition and intercession (calling on God to fulfill his promises to overcome evil with good) (Location 2725)
  • Listening to God—hearing God’s voice through quiet listening, Lectio Divina, the prophetic, and more (Location 2729)
  • Being with God—just looking at God, looking at you, in love (also called “contemplative prayer”) (Location 2730)

#4 Fasting

  • Fasting is one of the most essential and powerful of all the practices of Jesus and, arguably, the single most neglected in the modern Western church. (Location 2739)
  • You are learning to be joyful, even when you don’t get what you want. (Location 2743)
  • Fasting is hard, especially at first. Though it grows much easier with regular practice. But the “hangry” feelings that come up when we forgo meals often expose the arenas of our soul most in need of grace—and, again, open us to God in surprising ways. (Location 2745)
  • #5 Scripture (Location 2750)
  • #6 Community (Location 2761)
  • From coming together on Sunday for worship to eating a meal around a table to practicing confession to entering into spiritual direction, therapy, or mentorship—community is how we travel the Way, together. Do you have your traveling companions? (Location 2768)
  • #7 Generosity (Location 2771)
  • When we give—our money, our resources, our time and love—we get to participate in that divine outflow of love. And “when you act like God, you get to feel like God.”[50] (Location 2777)
  • #8 Service (Location 2783)
  • We serve. This could be quietly befriending the poor in your city or volunteering for a local nonprofit, but it could also be parenting your two-year-old or caring for your aging parents. (Location 2791)
  • #9 Witness (Location 2803)
  • #1 Start where you are, not where you “should” be (Location 2820)
  • You must name your limits—emotionally, relationally, even spiritually—and from there determine what you honestly can do, and then, let that be enough. (Location 2826)
  • If you’re just beginning, start small, with joyful, easily attainable practices—what the Stanford behavioral scientist BJ Fogg called “tiny habits.”[59] (Location 2830)
  • Start with ten or fifteen minutes; pray a psalm, go on a short walk, breathe. (Location 2832)
  • And make it what many “serious” Christians view as anathema—fun. Dare to ask yourself, How do I enjoy God? Is it sipping tea by the window early in the morning? Getting together with other followers of Jesus to throw a party? Walking in the forest? (Location 2835)
  • #2 Think subtraction, not addition (Location 2838)
  • Some teachers separate practices of “engagement” (disciplines of doing like justice, worship, study, and so on) from practices of “abstinence” (disciplines of not doing like Sabbath, silence, fasting, and so on). (Location 2842)
  • In certain cultural contexts, practices of engagement are necessary to break people out of lethargy and laziness. But if, like me, you live in a city, have a young family and a demanding job, and are constantly fighting off hurry—then practices of abstinence become the need of the hour. (Location 2843)
  • #3 Take a balanced approach (Location 2848)
  • #4 Take into account your personality and spiritual temperament (Location 2855)
  • Work with your personality, not against it. If you’re more introverted and intellectual, carve out plenty of time to be alone, read, and think. If you’re more extroverted and action oriented—go do stuff with other people. (Location 2855)
  • The spiritual writer Gary Thomas developed the concept of a “spiritual temperament” in his book Sacred Pathways, which is essentially a personality theory for prayer. (Location 2860)
  • Tragically, we humans tend to moralize our preferences, which can cause great harm to others who are different from us. (Location 2879)
  • #5 Take into account your season of life and stage of discipleship (Location 2882)
  • #6 Keep a healthy blend of upstream and downstream practices (Location 2897)
  • By downstream disciplines I just mean the practices that you naturally love and find joy in. And by upstream, I mean those practices that feel harder for you (and possibly, less pleasant) but move your soul toward growth. As a general rule, we need only a few upstream practices and a lot of downstream practices. (Location 2905)
  • #7 Follow the J curve (Location 2911)
  • #8 Do this in community (Location 2926)
  • #9 There is no formation without repetition (Location 2950)
  • There’s great joy to be found in repetition, if we can learn to be patient and full of delight in the present moment. No one has ever said this better than G. K. Chesterton: Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that he has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.[67] (Location 2961)
  • What is one small step you can take this week in practicing the Way of Jesus? Or is there something you feel a stirring in your heart to lay down? To leave behind? What would happen if you were to say yes to the impulse of God’s Sprit inside you? (Location 3010)
  • People often complain about how hard the spiritual life is. And the honest truth is, yes, it is. But what’s missing from this diagnosis is that the unspiritual life is even harder. (Location 3108)
  • So, in closing, for those of you who want to embark on the journey of a lifetime, let me offer you a few next steps. (Location 3167)
  • You must daily hold before your mind and imagination the beauty and possibility of life in the kingdom of God. Day by day, fill your heart with the wonder of the person, gospel, and life of Jesus. Read and reread the Gospels, pore over each story, turn your mind to him in prayer. Gaze on the Son of God. Once your heart is consumed by a vision of Jesus, you must begin, right where you are. Take one small step, immediately. (Location 3169)
  • Willard was once asked how to become a saint. He answered, “By doing the next right thing.”[25] (Location 3173)
  • Start there. Jesus has never met anyone anywhere other than where they actually are. Take it slow. Don’t try too hard. Relax. “Let life be willed through you.”[26] Breathe. Open to God. Start with rest. (Location 3178)
  • When you fall (and again, we all fall), repent, yes, but don’t get sucked into self-recrimination or shame. Fall back on God’s mercy. Let him pick you back up. (Location 3184)
  • I simply cannot recommend more strongly that you follow everything from the BibleProject: https://bibleproject.com. (Location 4375)