Nutrients of Discipleship
Rhythms for Resiliency & Growth
What’s in Your Spiritual Soil?
Keystone Rhythms/Macronutrients of the Soul
In John 14:6, Jesus says, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, which reveals who He is and how He relates to His people.
Jesus is the One who guides us along our spiritual journeys;
Jesus is the One who shows us the true story about God, ourselves, and the world; and
Jesus is the One who sustains our life and empowers us to be life & light in the world.
Knowing this about Jesus, we can also learn something about how we are to live as His disciples. We are to be people who are: Rooted in God’s Story, Connected to God’s Presence, Guided by His Spirit throughout our Spiritual Journey, and then Sent out to be Jesus’ Light & Life in the World.
I call these the four keystone rhythms of discipleship, or to use gardening language, these are the four spiritual macronutrients we need as disciples of Jesus. Just as plants need the macronutrients of Potassium, Phosphorus, and Nitrogen to grow and thrive, we need these spiritual macronutrients to grow and thrive. If any one of these is missing, we will languish in our discipleship journeys. Therefore, no matter where we are on the journey, we are to make time to pursue each of these rhythms/nutrients. That said, how we specifically do that will vary greatly across time and individuals.
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Each of us has our own unique story which belongs to God’s great love Story of Creation, Fall, Redemption, and New Creation found in Jesus Christ. In light of other stories being told to us by the broader culture (which we are prone to believe), we are invited to continually remember+ the True Story, which provides us with our true identity, meaning, values, and purpose in this world and then to retell* this Story to others so they may also find their true identity, meaning, values, and purpose.
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Ever since God created the world, He has had a strong desire to be in relationship with us, and God is always present with us. Thus, we are invited to notice and abide/remain+ in His presence, seeking out ways to be with Him and to develop a conversational friendship with Him. We are also to reveal* Jesus’ presence as we connect with others and act as Jesus’ hands and feet in the world.
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Each of us are on a journey of seeking deeper union with God and greater formation into His likeness as we abide in His love in the ups and downs of life - the joys, sorrows, surprises, tragedies, and ordinary circumstances of our life. We are invited to reflect+ on our journeys so that we may recognize God’s presence in our midst and respond to His invitations to follow Him and realign* our lives so that we may increasingly “look and act like Jesus.”
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While it can be easy as disciples of Jesus to bask in His Love for us and turn inwards, our life in Christ is never just about “me and Jesus.” It has always been about being Jesus’s Light & Life in the world. First, we can receive+ this through the care, compassion, mercy, advocacy, and love of others, and then we can radiate* out this Light & Life by being Jesus’s hands, feet, and mouth in the world, through kindness, love, and other Fruit of the Spirit; our vocation & work, our pursuit of justice & mercy; and our sharing the Good News with others.
As mentioned above, as Jesus’ disciples, we are to make time to pursue each of the keystone rhythms in every season & stage of life. That said, how we exactly do that will vary greatly across time and person, but having a healthy diet of all four nutrients/rhythms will remain vital for us. If in fact, if we skip any one of these nutrients, we will easily get off-balanced, stagnate in our growth in spiritual maturity, and be prone to being choked by the weeds of this world when challenges come along.
For example, if all we do is remember the true Story through Scripture study, we risk our faith being a heady one where we do not actually relate to God or be his Light & Life to others.
But if we simply remain in God’s presence without reference to the true story, we risk slipping into an ungrounded mysticism where we may misunderstand God.
Similarly, if we try to be guided on our spiritual journey without reference to the true story, we risk being guided by some other spirit, getting caught up in naval gazing as we reflect on our lives, and pursuing expressive individualism, where truth comes from within rather than from God.
And if we try to radiate Jesus’ life without being in His presence or knowing His story, we risk burnout and pursuing our own definitions of goodness rather than those defined by God.
You get the picture. To be growing and resilient, all four keystone rhythms are necessary for us.
In this season and stage of your life, how are you being Rooted in God’s Story, Connected to God’s Presence, Guided by the Holy Spirit on your Journey, and Sent out as Light and Life in the world?
Spiritual Fertilizers: Habits & Postures That Nourish our Souls
So now that we know the keystone rhythms/nutrients we are to pursue as disciples of Jesus, we can ask: How do we actually live into these rhythms? It is a good question, and book after book has been written about spiritual practices that can help us do so. That said, while these books and other resources are helpful, they can present us with so many different kinds of of practices that we can get easily paralyzed by the options. So before we get into practices, I want to talk about general habits or postures of the hearts that can guide us in moving forward. I call these spiritual fertilizers. Just like there are different kinds of fertilizers to help plants get the Phosphorus, Potassium, and Nitrogen they need, there are different habits/postures for each rhythm. These are different ways of approaching the spiritual life that have consistently been of help to disciples of Jesus throughout the ages. Click on the button below to explore more.
Building a Spiritual Trellis
Having thought through the different rhythms of discipleship , we can then put it all together and build a spiritual trellis, or what has traditionally been called a Rule of Life.
When Nutrients Are Missing
Click on the +’s below to find out more about each rhythm/nutrient. Note: each rhythm has an inward and outward focus, for discipleship is never simply just about us, but is for the sake of others. We breath in God’s goodness and love as we encounter Him+ and then we breath out that goodness and love to others as we become like Jesus*.