A Passion That's Been Building and Building

So, Lord God, I'm really trying to get back into a reading schedule, a prayer ritual, and some other personal habits that will allow me to make the time with You a priority. Yesterday and Monday night with the teaching meeting, I was contemplating discipline and what it means. Today as I read through Genesis I think I get even a different take on discipline.

Jacob, a character who I find fascinating, has spent twenty-some years away from his homeland and returns to settle there. His father Isaac had only one God, You namely. But when Jacob goes to find a wife among his own people, those who his grandfather Abraham had left behind, he is again influenced by a culture of many gods. So when he returns to his homeland, his household (servants, children, wives) are bringing with them many different gods.

Jacob had continually had encounters with You and seemed to be dedicated to serving only You. So when he settled down, You said, "Go ... build an altar there to God, who appeared to You..." I find it super interesting when people build altars in the Old Testament. Why and what are they doing?

To me, an altar is like a marker, a sign post, a reminder. Jacob builds the altar at Bethel, the area of land that he settles in. Because the altar is so close, it must have been a daily reminder to him of the Lord, and the things You had done for him. Perhaps it was also a way for Jacob to be reminded to be thankful, because he built the altar in recognition that You had been with him wherever he went.

So, now considering this for me... we don't make many altars anymore. But that doesn't mean that we can't have signposts, markers, reminders. In many ways, that is what a spiritual discipline does. Just like Jacob, when we enter into a discipline we have to "get rid of the foreign gods we have with us," i.e. the things that distract us from You. As we do that we begin to build a tradition or ritual that we daily experience as way of reminder.

Without discipline, without reminder, our hearts are easily blown about. But there is something settling and grounding in a tradition of discipline.

So this morning and coming mornings, let me continue to put off other thoughts and distractions and build up my time spent with You. Let me be grounded in You and in remembrance today.