How Discipline Can Nourish Our Souls {Day 30}

The thing about discipline is it’s not about to-do lists or rules. In fact, Galatians 5 says if we let the Spirit lead us, we can follow Him right out from underneath the Law. Straight to food for our souls.

When we walk in the Spirit, when we let Him invade our lives and lead our every step, He brings forth fruit in us that looks like love and joy and peace and patience. It tastes like kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control. This fruit comes as we keep in step with His Spirit.

And the keeping in step happens as we practice spiritual discipline. For, how can we hear the Spirit of God if we don’t listen in the quiet? How can we know His utter love for us if we don’t let Him know our whole hearts in worship and in private prayer? How can we truly trust Him for our every need if we don’t step out in faith through fasting?

When we live by the Spirit of God, when we trust Him for every next step, we become fully alive.

It means dying to ourselves on a regular basis.

Practicing discipline requires death to our own desires and obedience to His. Seeking God’s way in the details of the every day. Finding Him inside the quiet of the private moments.

We get on our knees every day and ask the Lord of our lives to show us where to step.

Then we stand up, and we take the next step.

Because it’s one thing to say we live by the Spirit. But it’s an entirely different thing to actually stand up and walk in it.