Disciplined Desire
by Jared Johnson
So I run with purpose in every step. I’m not just shadowboxing. I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should. Otherwise, I fear that after preaching to others I myself might be disqualified.
~Paul (1 Cor. 9.26-27, NLT)
The very last word you’d use to describe me would be “athlete.” But we’re talking about “discipline” this month so why not start with one of the keystone Bible statements about it?
Though I’m not an actual nor aspiring athlete, there is one practice, one discipline, I have learned to appreciate. I don’t enjoy the practice itself, but its results are worthwhile. Fasting is both underappreciated and underused.
Dad’s been a preacher for almost as long as I have been alive; I can’t remember us as anything but the preacher’s family. He and mom, for as long I have been cognizant, have fasted breakfast Sunday mornings because they take Sunday mornings seriously. Growing up, I thought “whatever; I need me some breakfast!” (It is the superior meal and that’s just a fact.)
That feed-my-appetite mindset only really began changing about 10 years ago. I got a 24-hour glucose blood test around 2014 and I registered higher than the pre-diabetic number. It wasn’t drastic but was undeniable and inexcusable. There it was, right there, black-and-white. “Confront the brutal facts” as author Jim Collins put it. I made dietary changes immediately and thoroughly. When I went back for an A1C test I was solidly below the danger zone. Since, I have often practiced fasting simply for the physical benefits; I do, occasionally, fast for prayer/spiritual reasons also.
That acute experience in 2014 and the ensuing time afterword taught me a whole new way to understand Luke 10.41-42. “…’My dear Martha, you’re worried and upset over all these details! There’s only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it, and it won’t be taken away from her’” (NLT).
There’s only one appetite worth feeding. It’s the one Mary fed millennia ago. The appetites we feed will grow. I struggle to feel the “white-hot passion to know God” that often centers discussion of spiritual disciplines. But that’s the only appetite I want to grow, so I’ll keep doing what (little) I can to bolster it. I want to generously provide for my spiritual appetite while deliberately denying and squeezing my physical appetites.
For I’ve told you often before, and I say it again with tears in my eyes, that there are many whose conduct shows they’re really enemies of the cross of Christ. They’re headed for destruction. Their god is their appetite, they brag about shameful things, and they think only about this life here on earth.
Philippians 3.18-19 (NLT emphasis added)
We got a puppy this summer after our first family dog died in late spring. Though she’s often fun, that puppy is utterly ruled by her appetites. We dish out food carefully so she doesn’t overeat. We manage and supervise her time outside so she doesn’t eat mushrooms – or the pool hoses. We have had to correct her multiple times when she tried to yank food off our supper table. She even jumped onto the countertop in the ½-second my wife’s back was turned, attempting to swipe a piece of pizza. She’s enslaved by her appetite; it is her god.
My desire to know and be close to God may be less than a shadow of what I hoped it would be at 40+ years old, but I know I do not want to be like that. I see and hear how cravings for any number of external things drive people – food, alcohol, money, reputation, adrenaline, chemical buzz, emotions – and I know instantly, viscerally, that’s not how Jesus lived. He deliberately skipped out on many of the appetites that can drive us: food (John 4.34), sleep (Luke 6.12), fame (Matt 8.4, Mark 7.36), political power (John 6.15), the need to verbally retort (Mark 14.53-61), possessions (Matt 8.20), marriage/sexuality and no doubt much more, all because He was always doing His Father’s work (John 5.17).
No, dear brothers and sisters, I haven’t achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize…
Philippians 3.13-14 (NLT)
I haven’t achieved “the prize,” nor have I achieved discipline, but I do know that denying my innate appetites and pursuing God is one thing I can – and need to – practice. I’m a creature of habit and cherish my time every evening listening to an audio Bible reader. Our youngest and I have a bedtime routine and when he’s done with his day I want to go hear Scripture. I’m painfully aware of so many times I fail in spiritual disciplines, but I do know one thing that works in the space between my ears and I’m glad to pursue it.
“Doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results is the definition of insanity.” ~Random people, not Albert Einstein
“Doing the same thing over and over expecting different results isn’t insanity. It’s practice!”
I have no idea where I first heard that but I’m glad I did! (I asked the preacher I thought had said it but he denied.) If one needs to hit a baseball correctly, learn to drive a golf ball in a straight line, make a climbing pitch, get that last plate on the bar and lift it, or cross a finish line under that time, one simply must do the reps. Same actions (more or less), repeated over time, can develop new results. Doing the same thing over and over expecting a new result just might be “insane” in a business environment, but in the Christian life, it’s practice that’ll yield new insights and results. I began reading/hearing the Bible all the way through at least yearly since 2011, but Holy Spirit says new things to me through “old,” familiar passages on a regular basis. He doesn’t give me something new every night, but that isn’t the point. Doing the rep is the point.
Don’t be misled – you can’t mock the justice of God. You’ll always harvest what you plant. Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit. So let’s not get tired of doing what’s good. At just the right time we’ll reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.
Galatians 6.7-9 (NLT)
I want to harvest spiritual growth and fruit – in my life and the lives of people close to me – and to enjoy that harvest I need to keep feeding that singular, always-worth-feeding appetite, just like Mary did at Jesus’s feet all those years ago.
No discipline is enjoyable while it’s happening – it’s painful! But afterward there’ll be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way. So take a new grip with your tired hands and strengthen your weak knees. Mark out a straight path for your feet so those who are weak and lame won’t fall but become strong.
Hebrews 12.11-13 (NLT)
Though Hebrews’ author was talking about “discipline” in the sense of correction in this passage’s context, it still mostly fits in the “doing reps” sense as well. Fasting is physically painful. Confession/accountability is emotionally painful. Worship, solitude, service, submission, study and others can all be painful for different reasons at different times. But using spiritual disciplines to reset spiritually, as Hebrews tells us to do (“new grip,” “straight path”), will benefit us and the people around us.
Whatever your chosen spiritual discipline(s), keep doing your reps.
Let’s keep feeding the one and only appetite that will satisfy.
