Spiritual Exercises

The initial extraction is from Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises, though it has been supplemented.

Background

Many believers understand the inevitability of family conflicts, church disagreements, and persecution, but they often don’t realize that they can start preparation for it long before it happens.

Like physically or mentally working out, our spirits need strengthening and sharpening.

  • The Catholic Church has practiced exercises for a few millennia, but has added plenty of unnecessary aspects to their format.
  • Many Protestants don’t tend to practice spiritual exercises at all, except for regular Bible study.

However, Christians don’t necessarily need a mystical experience.

  • Spiritual exercises are a personalized regimen of various thought patterns and routines that enforce what we already know.
  • From moment to moment, walking in Christ is an experience in self-improvement and submission.
  • The mystical experiences will come as they may, and we’re simply responsible to persevere irrespective of how we feel at the time.

We must take our exercises seriously if we want to see results from them.

  • We often mindlessly practice actions without considering their meaning.
  • It’s only worth doing it if we look forward to spending time and energy with God.
  • Faith is a matter of contemplation and focus, which will lead to a type of pleasure as we continue performing it.

Spiritual exercises are essentially the works-based portion of faith (James 2:14-18), and it expresses differently for each person.

  • Everyone’s personality is different, so nobody else will do it quite the same way as you.
  • Not even your style will be quite the same as anyone else’s.
  • It’s your own specific friendship and identity in Christ, so it’s a private matter between you and Him.

Awareness

Find awareness of yourself:

  • The experience is essentially meditation, but can be whatever allows you to hear Him.
  • That awareness must be in relationship to God.
  • From there, you’ll discover awareness of your sins.
  • Audaciously and uncompromisingly focus on all your sins and how much it has and can harm His creations.

General Sin-Purging

Grab any particular sin you still might struggle with:

  1. At the beginning of the day, only focus on identifying when your sin happens.
    • Don’t worry immediately about changing it, since it’s a challenge to simply become aware of sins.
  2. Throughout the day, write down the time the sin arose in your mind.
  3. At the end of the day, analyze what triggered those sins and consider how to reprogram your habits (e.g., sidestep the triggers altogether).
  4. Repeat for the next day, as long as you keep struggling with that sin.
  5. Add habits as you need strengthening:
    • Focus more intently, hour by hour and minute by minute.
    • Put your hand on your chest to remind you of the inner state of sin, and how nobody else can hold you accountable but yourself and God.
    • Note trends between the number of times you sin across hours, days, and weeks.

Focus on sins as they happen, but go further:

  • We usually observe a sin when we do it, then stop it at that moment.
  • Focus more heavily on sinful habits and long-term patterns, and devote yourself to never letting it happen again.
  • Make sure God is part of that inner dialogue, and ask for His help as you go.

Focus on responding much more slowly to literally anything.

  • Your body is God’s temple, so loving God means maintaining your body and actions within your physical control (1 Corinthians 6:13-19).

Simple Prayers

Daily set aside time to pray for everyone you’ve encountered in the past 24 hours.

Make a routine confession of your own personal summary of the Lord’s Prayer:

  • Father in heaven, your name is holy.
  • Bring your Kingdom and do your will here the way it is in heaven.
  • Give me/them this day and what I/they need.
  • Forgive me the way I’ve forgiven others.
  • Keep me/us from temptation and protect me/us from evil.
  • It’s all yours anyway.

To the degree that you need it, have an opening routine when you speak with God:

  1. Take your time with Him seriously, since His availability does not mean we should treat time with Him as commonplace.
  2. Go to a specific place, or assume a specific position.
    • Your purpose should be to have uninterrupted, focused time with God.
  3. Have an unchanging routine of “mental purification”.
    • It should be a routine that clarifies that you want what God wants more than yourself.
    • The purpose for this is for you to get in the right frame of mind, so it can be whatever rituals work for you.
  4. Consider the sin nature we are all in when you speak with Him.
    • This doesn’t necessarily mean you must dwell on it (since Jesus certainly doesn’t), but pay attention to any sins still in your life that He died on the cross for.
    • If you didn’t have Jesus’ sacrifice, God sees that the things you have done justify eternal punishment in hell (Luke 18).

Ask God to do something humanly impossible to advance the kingdom of Heaven.

Pray deeply for someone’s salvation.

Daily Routines

Make a morning routine to focus on spiritual matters.

  • Devote yourself to quiet time and prayer.
    • If you need to, use meditative music in the background.
  • Read your Bible or have a simple Bible study with your family.
  • Ask God how you can best use the day.

Find something small that captures the patterns of God’s goodness.

Find and remove your most massive time-waster.

Focus less on “why” or “what”, and instead focus on “how”.

Go throughout a supermarket, enjoying the experience of each food, and only buy things in the store you had set out to purchase.

Throughout your routine, consider lifestyles and decisions from people in the Bible (especially Jesus) and how it reflects to today’s conventional way of life.

Set a reminder, like an alarm, to focus on Him hour-by-hour.

  • Increase it slowly until you’ve made it minute-by-minute.

Consistently thank God and others as you go about your routine.

  • For God making absolutely everything, and that it is good.
  • For people who provide what we need.
  • For people who provide for those people.

Thank God every time you see a naturally occurring thing.

Work to improve relationships with everyone around you, such as your marriage and children.

  • Avoid needless conflicts and learn how to defuse them.
  • Submit yourself to anyone in authority (i.e., police, government officials, employer).
  • Accept any corrections or rebukes from others.
    • You don’t have to like it, but have the humility to accept others’ points of view have valid points.
    • If you did do anything, seek forgiveness from others and from God.

Rewrite Bible verses.

  • Place them in conspicuous places, like your wallet or mirror.
  • Paraphrase the Bible into simple ideas.

Bring up Scripture with other believers.

  • Ask them about what they think about a certain Bible verse.
  • Talk about why God was thinking of giving a specific command, or why the consequences of something played out the way they did.

Consider new ways to serve others who may need it.

  • Don’t think about what others may think or if you’ll receive approval for it.

Devote yourself to making yourself more moral for the next day, month, or year compared to the last one.

  • Remind yourself that you’re never really “alone”, and that many spiritual beings are observing all of us (Hebrews 12:1).

Take one day off each week (a “sabbath”) to rest and relax.

  • The Sabbath is a commandment that forces us to rely on God at least one day every week.
  • However, if you wish, you can make every day devoted as holy to Him (Romans 14:5).

Carefully consider any media you consume, especially fiction:

  • Analyze promoted values within the story.
    • Watch for repeated phrases or statements throughout the story.
    • Carefully examine pivotal events, like how the story started or how the characters came to their conclusions.
    • Consider the opponent’s reasoning to see what the storyteller wants you to decide against.
  • Pay attention to consequences for behaviors in the story, both good and bad.
    • These consequences should reflect both reality and an ideal.
    • Note how the story fulfills or plays with the hero’s needs, weaknesses, or faults.
  • Look at who wins, who loses, who dies and why.
    • The winner reflects the storyteller’s model of how we should act, even if they die or permanently suffer.
    • Losers, by contrast, show an opposite value of the storyteller’s desires.
    • If both sides win, ask what the “third option” implied.
    • Anyone who dies represents an idea that can’t exist in the storyteller’s world, and its context will imply that character is either weak or a symbol of greatness.
    • Great stories will closely reflect a real-life example for their models.
  • An ending can change the story’s entire message, so look near the end for plot twists that swap roles.
  • Pay special attention to how the story ends and the final idea the storyteller leaves you with.
    • To see the storyteller’s agenda, observe the hero’s conclusion and the story’s redemption near the end.

If you’re enduring any hardship, make a habit of trusting in God.

  1. Steadily release the experience as you anticipate it, and learn to relax before the trauma hits.
  2. Focus on Him steadily as the hardship washes over you by remembering Christ’s suffering, other Christians’ trials, and people who suffered in the Bible.
  3. After the trauma, release the ripple effects from the psychological pain.

As you feel led, scale back creature comforts.

Bible Study

When you get bored reading the Bible, try a new method you haven’t tried yet of studying the Bible.

Memorize a new passage of Scripture, then seek to understand absolutely everything it implies.

Every time you run across a Bible verse somewhere, read the entire chapter where that passage came from.

Commit passages completely to memory.

Serving Needs

Stay hospitable and open to others with needs, especially the underclass.

  • The original design God intended for us is to observe unfulfilled needs, then desire to help others.
  • By observing people suffering more than you, you’ll be both encouraged (in your life) and motivated (from desiring their improvement).

Do what you can for the people suffering around you.

  • If you can’t help, direct them to other people you know who may be more equipped to help.
  • Unless you know it’s a surefire solution, do not direct them to government assistance programs.
    • They’re typically suffering enough that a possible solution that’s a false hope will devastate them.
    • Instead, do research about what is available before approaching them with the idea.

Brainstorm ways to serve others with the things you naturally do for fun.

  • Get involved in the arts:
  • Share your personal hobbies with other believers.

Spend time with others:

  • Invite other believers to your home, or offer to serve in their home.
  • Have Bible studies together.
  • Throw parties with other believers at your home.