“Our world is hungry for genuinely changed people. Leo Tolstoy observes, ‘Everybody thinks of changing humanity and nobody thinks of changing himself.’ Let us be among those who believe that the inner transformation of our lives is a goal worthy of our best effort.”
(Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline, p. 11)

Throughout his ministry Richard Foster has cared deeply about helping Christians to enhance their spiritual journeys and deepen their relationships with God. In 1978 he wrote Celebration of Discipline, a book that has been a companion for many on their quest for deeper relationships with God. Through a series of short chapters, Foster explored 13 spiritual disciplines, things like prayer, study, simplicity, solitude, worship to name but several.

In each case he sought to dispel the notion that spiritual disciplines like these were reserved for spiritual giants who possessed large bodies of theological and biblical knowledge and gifts of eloquent prayer. No, spiritual disciplines are for all of us and have but one requirement: to seek to deepen our relationship with God. Foster knows that volumes of knowledge and eloquence do not lead to compassionate discipleship. Foster knows that the compassionate discipleship to which Jesus calls us begins, instead, in our yearning for God as one who is thirsty yearns for water or one who is hungry yearns for food.

It is no coincidence, then, that Foster begins his book with comments like the one above. The goal of spiritual discipline is our transformed lives that proceed to transform our families, workplaces, church congregations, neighborhoods, our worlds. As more and more people are transformed, more and more of the world is transformed. It begins with me, and you, though. Tolstoy’s comment is a challenge to many of us: “Everybody thinks of changing humanity and nobody thinks of changing himself.” (sic) How easy it is to identify people and places that need to be transformed, where there is brokenness or violence or poverty or despair or … any of a myriad of needs! And we are called into those places and lives to seek to bring grace and mercy and wholeness.

To be prepared to transform the world around us, though, we need to first allow God to transform us. That is the hard part for it requires that we open our lives, warts and all, into God’s care, humbly seeking God’s transformation of those parts of us that need to be transformed. As our hearts and lives are changed from within by our gracious God, we can experience a love that exceeds our greatest hopes or expectations. In that loving touch by an intimate God is the stuff of transformation. That transformation from within is what will propel us to be compassionate servants of God’s mercy and grace that can transform the world.

That is the key reason for embracing spiritual disciplines like prayer, study, simplicity, solitude, and worship. These disciplines, and others as well, open doors that allow our loving God to speak to us in powerful and transforming ways. What spiritual disciplines will you embrace as you accept the invitation to personal transformation that will lead to the transformation of our worlds? Over the next several weeks this blog will explore spiritual disciplines: why they matter and ways to make them parts of our lives. As we begin this journey into spiritual disciplines and God’s transforming love, let’s allow the hope-filled words of the psalmist to become our own:

Just like a deer that craves streams of water, my whole being craves you, God. My whole being thirsts for God, for the living God. When will I come and see God's face?
(Psalm 42:1-2, CEB)

Dave Fetterman is the Director of Christian Education and Spiritual Formation at Westminster Presbyterian Church.