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Let’s Uncomplicate What Spiritual Formation Looks Like
Read, Mediate, and Pray
I think sometimes we overcomplicate the spiritual formation question. I think some of the literature that’s out there today perhaps does this with good intentions. When people are wondering, Okay, what do I actually do? I want to grow in the Christian life. What does that look like? there is sometimes a tendency to get these elaborate programs that say, Well, you need to do this, you need to do that. You need to make sure all the puzzle pieces fit together. I think sometimes that can feel exciting, interesting, and different, but then other times that can just feel overwhelming—and sometimes in the same person. It feels exciting at first, and then you try to implement it, and it’s actually quite complicated. Eventually, it breaks down and leads to disappointment.
One of the things I love about the Puritans’ approach to spiritual formation is that it is characterized by a profound biblical simplicity—not simplistic, which is a negative connotation, but a beautiful simplicity.
A Heart Aflame for God
Matthew C. Bingham
A Heart Aflame for God explores spiritual formation practices that are consistent with the 5 solas, presenting the riches of the Reformed tradition for 21st-century evangelicals.
Often things that are attractive and good have a simplicity about them. For example, a simple wedding band is simple and beautiful. When we think about Reformation, Bible-rooted spirituality, we see it rooted in three core disciplines or practices. I call it the Reformation Triangle because they inform and feed into one another: Bible intake (whether that’s reading or hearing), meditation on that Bible, and then prayer. One way to conceive of it is as a conversation. We’re hearing from God in his word, we’re thinking on what we’ve heard in his word, and then we’re praying it back to him. If we think about it that way and ask what it looks like to walk with the Lord faithfully, to grow, and to be formed spiritually, essentially, you want to be engaging with that every day.
So every day you want to be taking in God’s word. And maybe that’s the one-year reading plan that is four chapters a day, and that’s awesome. But maybe that’s not where you’re at right now, and that’s okay. Maybe it’s reading a psalm. Maybe it’s taking a proverb. Maybe it’s reading little by little, half a chapter a day, through 1 Corinthians.
At the end of the day, spiritual formation is working out our salvation with fear and trembling.
Just take something from God’s word, maybe write it down (I find it helpful to write it down), and then meditate upon it. And that doesn’t need to be overly complicated either. That’s essentially thinking deeply and pondering it. Don’t just read it and take it in as mere information. Yes, you want to understand the words that you’re hearing, but then you want to ponder it and ask, How does this intersect with my life, my heart, the place where God’s put me, in the work he’s given me to do, and the people he has called me to love and serve?
Let that sit and marinate, and then it gives way to prayer. You're talking and responding to God and saying, Lord, help me to be like this example in this verse. Help me to love you more. Help me not to be like this negative example I read about in one of the Old Testament narratives, perhaps. Help me to be the man or the woman that you’ve called me to be today and each day.
There’s a sense in which sometimes I think we overcomplicate the spiritual formation discussion because at the end of the day, spiritual formation is working out our salvation with fear and trembling. It’s for men and women who are in Christ, born again, who are trying to walk faithfully and serve him by using the means he’s given. So we take our Bible, we listen to God, we think on it, and we pray it back to him in prayer.
Matthew C. Bingham is the author of A Heart Aflame for God: A Reformed Approach to Spiritual Formation.
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