Ahhh the magical wonders and magnitude of spiritual disciplines. Something I know that I will always need to grow in.
So when I was in Thailand doing a mission internship a couple summers ago; God really did work on my heart… like crazy work. Ugh. So hard but so so good. And we (God and I) worked a lot on spiritual disciplines. He was teaching me about different spiritual disciplines and about things that I had never really considered being spiritual disciplines. Well now as I am rereading the book I studied while in Thailand; ‘The Life You’ve Always Wanted’ by John Ortberg [FABULOUS BOOK. Seriously. Go read it now.] I find myself being reminded of what I learned then. And well, while I’m re-learning, I’d like to share with all of you.
First of all.
I’d never really considered joy as spiritual discipline before… but God showed me that BAM it is.
Joy is a strength. Our God is a joyous God! I mean look in Genesis He created the world and He smiled down upon it and said “it is good”. Imagine if God approached his work the way we approach ours… whining about it, complaining about it, just watching the clock waiting in anticipation for it to be over. The reality is though that God is the happiest being in the universe and we are called to be joyful.
“This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it” Psalm 118:24.
Notice that verse. THIS. Today. This day. Right now.
Our society struggles. We live with this idea, this misconception, that joy will come someday when we get to the place we’re working towards or some day when our conditions change. EERRRRRRR. Wrong. We’re called to be joyful in this day. Not joyful 10 years from now when we’re married. Not joyful 2 years from now when we’ve finally graduated and we have the job and the house and the white picket fence. Not when we’re retired. Not even 3 months from now when we’re boarding a plane leaving for the World Race. We’re called to be joyful right now in this moment today in the midst of everything.
Ask most people what the 1st commandment is and BOOM, nailed it. They know. They can even go so far as to state the second part the ‘golden rule’ if you will.
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:30-31
Now… I want to focus on the second part. On the love your neighbor as yourself part. Normally when people talk about this it’s all about loving others and your neighbors and strangers and treating people correctly and of course that is all great and we should do that, but I want to focus on this verse a little differently.
God challenged me with this A LOT a while ago, and He is doing it again now.
You can look at this verse in two parts;
Firstly and the most obvious – we’re called to love our neighbors.
and
Second part – we’re called to love ourselves.
Looking in my own life; am I doing this? Do I love my neighbor as I love myself? No.
And honestly it’s probably good that I don’t love my neighbor and treat my neighbor like I do myself because honestly… most of the time…
I’m not so good at loving myself.
God challenged me a lot with loving myself that growing summer in Thailand. So… Thailand, first off… is a culture that is very very focused on appearance. Weight is a HUGE deal. You weigh yourself before and after meals, etc. Jobs are based off of what you look like, everything. Even more so than American culture, i mean think extremes. Also, Thailand has this thing… where it’s seen as “loving” to point out flaws in people. This was one of the hardest things i had to realize. When i walked into the mall and instantly was surrounded by Thai women and men telling me they had weight reduction surgeries that would take all my fluff (just so we’re all aware, I’m not fat… I’m fluffy) away and they had creams that would fix that huge zit on my face; they were telling me out of love.
Let me try to explain; it’s like a “hey look, i noticed you enough to notice you have that huge zit on your face; i love you enough to notice that!” And we got this treatment and we’re noticed EVEN more so being farang (American). UGH it was such a hard concept to be okay with. SO well… needless to say me and my double zero sized body had some serious self-confidence and self-esteem issues while in Thailand. God taught me that loving myself was a discipline.
So God showed me how to go about working on these disciplines in my life and he is reiterating it all to me now. So I just wanted to share it. I’ve talked lately to some people who are bogged down with stress and frustrations and work and school and fundraising and blah blah blah they need some serious joy. And I’ve talked to even more people who are struggling with self-confidence and their worth. SO. We’re going to do this challenge together okay? Any objections?? No? Great! Awesome sauce.
First challenge: the happy dance.
Laugh all you want, but it’s impacted my life.
Here’s what you do.
Just 60 seconds.
When you get up in the morning take 60 seconds, and just dance.
I’m so serious right now. Get up and dance. Do it while you brush your teeth or in the shower, put on music, sing, or dance in silence; whatever, but dance for 60 seconds and thank God for your ability to dance at all. It starts off weird, but eventually, you get to a point where you’re joyful. I mean how can you not be, you’re dancing, you’re awake, you’re alive, you’re up, you have the ability to dance. This is something I started doing that summer in Thailand and it’s something that I still do every morning to this day.
Alright second challenge; God challenged me to fall in love with myself. (and no not in some arrogant way, but to be in love with myself with who I was in Christ) He challenged me to wake up every day and while I was in the bathroom look in the mirror and simply tell myself that I am beautiful. That’s how I began starting the day. Typically I did this while happy dancing but I made a point of telling myself that every morning. ALSO, I implemented a rule that ANYTIME I said something negative about myself I then had to say 2 nice things. [it sounds ridiculous and childish i know, but stay with me here.] The negative things are so easy to come up with and so easy to believe. You know how there’s that saying that if you hear something enough you start to believe it… exactamundo. So. anytime I said a negative, 2 positives.
Well; I’m challenging us all to start doing this daily in our own daily lives. We are created in the image of Christ. We are beautiful creations created in the image of God. It’s about time we started treating ourselves like it.
So I know it seems childish and whatever. But give it a shot. Give it 2 weeks at least? Please? Por favor? It might not be something you can get into and enjoy and well that’s fine but if that is the case then promise me one thing.
You will find some other way to practice joy and to fall in love with yourself.
Alright?
Cool beans. J
