I recently signed up for my first marathon; I’ll be doing the Marine Corps Marathon in October. But actually, it wasn’t the first marathon I signed up for. I had another last year… but I neglected to train very well. Life was stressful and I had too much to do, but mostly my discipline was simply lacking. Every couple of weeks my friend would ask me, “How’s your training going?” And the answer was… it wasn’t. I was lacking the discipline necessary and not not putting in the required time. In the end, I wasn’t able to run.

“Discipline” is one of the key words I speak about with my Marines. The discipline with which we live our lives and conduct ourselves continues to shape, refine, and develop us into the people that we become. Our habits become our character. 

We often believe that we will “rise to the occasion” when necessary, but what we have found is that people fall back on the level of their training. The things that we do, the practices we develop, the spiritual rhythms of prayer and study and reflection that shape us… these become our default when life becomes difficult. 

In his book You Are What You Love, James K. A. Smith talks about developing our habitus, our habits. At its core, we are what we do; what we practice is what we become. Our actions, repeated over and over again, begin to inscribe themselves on our hearts through routines and rituals that shape and develop us into the people we will become. [1] 

As ministers, pastors, and spiritual leaders… What are we practicing? We get up each Sunday and expound upon the virtues of study, prayer, and sabbath, but are we developing these practices in our own lives? 

There are times when I find myself praying, studying, fasting, meditating, and spending time with God throughout my ministry. But more often, I find myself caught up in the grind of lessons to write, sermons to preach, worship to plan, counseling sessions to hold and meetings to chair. I find myself so busy that I often neglect my own spiritual development and renewal. Can I give to others what I am not currently experiencing myself? For a time, sure. But it is counterfeit at best if it continues on this way.

I fly a lot, and each time I am treated to the same presentation on what to do in case the plane experiences sudden cabin depressurization: “Oxygen masks will drop from the panels in front of you… Put on your own oxygen mask before you try to help those around you.” You can’t help others if you aren’t taking care of yourself. If you aren’t investing in your own spiritual growth, if you aren’t training for the trials that come… then you ultimately won’t be good for those who come to you for counsel, for direction, for growth.

Paul puts it this way when he is writing to the Christians in Corinth: 

“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air.  No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.” [2]

Paul states that we all go into strict training, don’t run aimlessly and don’t throw meaningless shadow-punches. Make your actions count. And the part that really hits home for me is his ending: “so that after I have preached to others I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.” It doesn’t matter how many sermons I preach, how many people I lead to Jesus… if I don’t have a relationship with God that deepens and develops me at the same time. 

So, how is your training going? Are your spiritual practices developing you into the person that God needs you to be to continue ministering in his name? Are you growing in faith? Are you putting your own sermons into practice? 

I want to challenge you to join me in the month of May. This next month, I am going to spend thirty-one days doing three things:

1. Going through a devotional book (whatever book you might want to work through), and

2. Spending ten minutes in prayer, and

3. Spending five minutes in silence, remembering that the LORD is with me.

If you would like to join me in this training, I would love to have you. And I’d love to hear how God is using this to refill you for ministry.

[1] Smith writes, “Education in virtue is a kind of formation, a restraining of our dispositions. ‘Learning’ virtue—becoming virtuous—is more like practicing scales on the piano than learning music theory: the goal is, in a sense, for your fingers to learn the scales so they can play naturally… First, we learn virtues through imitation… Second, acquiring virtue takes practice… [They are] inscribed into your character through rhythms and routines and rituals, enacted over and over again, that implant in you a disposition to an end (telos) that becomes a character trait—a sort of learned, second-nature default orientation that you tend toward ‘without thinking about it.’” You Are What You Love (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2016), 18-19.

[2] 1 Corinthians 9:24-27.