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March 26 - April 10, 2025
A Rule of Life is a schedule and set of practices and relational rhythms that create space for us to be with Jesus, become like him, and do as he did, as we live in alignment with our deepest desires. It’s a way of intentionally organizing our lives around what matters most: God.
This rule doesn’t mean a list of rules. It’s more of a set of practices, relationships, and commitments that is inspired by the Spirit for the sake of our wholeness in Christ.[4]
David Brooks once defined commitment as “falling in love with something [or someone] and then building a structure of behavior around it for those moments when love falters.”[6]
“Today, you are young and very much in love and you think that your love can sustain your marriage. It can’t. Let your marriage sustain your love.”[7]
If your emotional life is off kilter, if you feel far from God, stressed, anxious, and chronically mad, and you’re not becoming more of a person of love, then the odds are that something about the system of your life is poorly designed.
A Rule of Life is an invitation to a very different definition of freedom than that of the modern world—an invitation to embrace the constraints that, if you give yourself to them, will eventually set you free.
Andy Crouch beautifully defines a Rule of Life as “a set of practices to guard our habits and guide our lives.”[11]
To live by a Rule, of course, will require a crash course in learning to say no—not just to sin, but to all sorts of things, good and bad. This, in turn, will require many of us to rethink our criteria for decision-making.
A wisely chosen Rule has the potential to enrich your life in ways you can’t possibly imagine.
This is the great challenge of discipleship: to move from aspirational ideas to authentic transformation.
Hearing sermons (or reading books) about following Jesus is kind of like watching YouTube videos on golf—it’s a wonderful place to start, but you won’t get very far until you put your shoes on and hit the green.
“We achieve inner peace when our schedule aligns with our values.” Because our schedules are so often not aligned with our values, many of us live with this electric current of anxiety pulsing through our nervous systems all the time;
The Rule is the anchor, and your life is the boat. Most of the time, when you’re living rightly, you don’t even feel it; but when you drift, you feel it pull you back to center.
Disciplines are the path, not the destination.
Love is the metric to pay attention to.
If you do the practices for the wrong reasons (to look good, one-up, or mask your shame), they work against your formation, not for it; they become a kind of parasitic infestation on your soul.
The practices are how we meet God in our pain and deepen our surrender to him, trusting God to do what he will, when he will.
The practices are disciplines based on the lifestyle of Jesus that create time and space for us to access the presence and power of the Spirit and, in doing so, be transformed from the inside out.
What drills are to basketball (or scales are to playing the guitar, or a sprint workout is to a half marathon, or shading spheres is to an artist), the practices are to becoming a person of love. We do what we can do—read Scripture, pray, practice Sabbath, eat a meal with community—to be formed into people who can eventually do what we currently cannot do: live and love like Jesus.
Our part is to slow down, make space, and surrender to God; his part is to transform us—we simply do not have that power.
Anything can become a spiritual discipline if we offer it to God as a channel of grace.
There are four basic levels of prayer[42] (or, you could say, dimensions to prayer): Talking to God—praying premade prayers like the psalms or liturgy, or singing prayers at church, and so on Talking with God—conversing with God about your life. Lifting up the details of your life before God with gratitude (talking to him about what is good in your life and world), lament (talking to him about what is evil in your life and world), and petition and intercession (calling on God to fulfill his promises to overcome evil with good) Listening to God—hearing God’s voice through quiet listening,
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“We generally sin alone, but we heal together.”[48]
#1 Start where you are, not where you “should” be
to craft a Rule, you have to be very honest about where you are in your discipleship and what you’re capable of in this season. You must name your limits—emotionally, relationally, even spiritually—and from there determine what you honestly can do, and then, let that be enough.
Work with your personality, not against it. If you’re more introverted and intellectual, carve out plenty of time to be alone, read, and think. If you’re more extroverted and action oriented—go do stuff with other people.
There’s so much space to be who you are before God.
The spiritual writer Gary Thomas developed the concept of a “spiritual temperament” in his book Sacred Pathways, which is essentially a personality theory for prayer. He wrote, “There is great freedom in how we can meet with and enjoy God. This is by his design and according to his good pleasure.” His warning: “Beware of narrowing your approach to God.”[60] He categorized nine spiritual temperaments, each with its own unique pathway to God: Naturalists: loving God in nature and the outdoors Sensates: loving God with the senses—candles, incense, materials, and so on Traditionalists: loving God
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Don’t fight against your season; work with it.
Of course, we all hate this, but the practices that are the hardest for us will likely be the most transformative.
When you attempt to grow in a new skill (from playing the piano to practicing Sabbath), you often get worse at it before you get better.
So: Write up a Rule of Life, even if it’s just for yourself. But if at all possible, do this in community—with a few friends, with your small group or table community, or, in a dream world, with your entire church.
Formation is slow, cumulative, and at times monotonous work. In the moment, you often don’t feel like the practices are “doing” all that much to you. They are; it’s just slow and subtle.
“Micro-rituals have macro significance.”
There’s great joy to be found in repetition, if we can learn to be patient and full of delight in the present moment.
For most of us in the West, the cross isn’t literal; it’s a metaphor for a settled intention to put to death our self-will, the root of our human problem.
Within the heart of a true disciple is a settled intention of the will to obey Jesus.
When Jesus used a financial metaphor for salvation, he did not say it was free; he said it would cost your entire life savings, but you would gain a thousand times more than you gave up.
So, in closing, for those of you who want to embark on the journey of a lifetime, let me offer you a few next steps. You must daily hold before your mind and imagination the beauty and possibility of life in the kingdom of God.
Read and reread the Gospels, pore over each story, turn your mind to him in prayer. Gaze on the Son of God.
Once your heart is consumed by a vision of Jesus, you must begin, right where you are. Take one small step, immediately. Willard was once asked how to become a saint. He answered, “By doing the next right thing.”
Jesus has never met anyone anywhere other than where they actually are
Take it slow.
When you fall (and again, we all fall), repent, yes, but don’t get sucked into self-recrimination or shame. Fall back on God’s mercy. Let him pick you back up.
As is said in the East, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one small step.” Just take the first step, then the next, then whatever comes after…
