I cringe at the word discipline. I even whisper when saying, "spiritual disciplines." I feel that the very word is contradictory to life in God. But, I know I am missing something.
In the beginning of his article, Wallace is addressing writers about the art of discipline: "Choose a time to make work and hold that time inviolate, I tell them. If you lack inspiration, wait. Don't do anything else. The work will come."
Of course "the work" is their writing. And his advice is to wait. To wait. Even this morning I lack the motivation and inspiration to work on my song set for Sunday. I am procrastinating. Waiting is not my strong suit and nor is it many others'. To sit and wait is a discipline I have not conquered. Our generation is a fidgety one with short attention spans. We are stimulated by media, short commercials, amazing graphics. If a plot takes longer than 10 min to get going, we bust. If a song takes longer than 10 seconds to catch our attention its over. If a channel doesn't appeal to us in 3 seconds (channel surfing), we switch the channel. Imagine, sitting in silence for more than 5 minutes. That is a ridiculous notion. My only 5 minutes of silence is before I nod off to dream land.
Ok, so what! Well, my lack of patience and attention span steals the very time I need with God. Often, God desires us to shut down, and be silent. "Be still and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10). Our first reaction to being still is, "this is boring." And we are gone, playing guitar, watching a movie, or facebook creeping, to our place of zen. We have a desire and an addiction to being numbed and this is dangerous.
The saying goes, "Idle hands are the devils workshop," but for our generation we don't know how to be still. The consequence is stark. Its called complacency, which leads to a generation with no future. Are we not tired of being distracted by almost meaningless things? Let's react and keep an alert mind.
This is where a discipline is useful. Silence. Its an advanced practice. Here's how to do it. "Choose a time to make work and hold that time inviolate, I tell them. If you lack inspiration, wait. Don't do anything else."
That's the advice. It's advice that can be useful for writing, music, and especially in our spiritual lives. Let's train ourselves to be still before our God. Let's not be a generation marked by complacency, but wake up from our lazy slumber. Our lives depend on it. Then watch. Watch as we experience new life in Christ. We'll discover that in Him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17) and that he gives life and life to the full (John 10:10b). The life God gives us is beyond compare. This is what we miss out on when we don't wait.
