The Link Between Physical and Spiritual Discipline

Spiritual comfort is actually not our friend. Those who are comfortable, you know, you sit more, you don't move as much. Your body really needs to be like fasting does it, you know, it kicks in autophagy and telomere growth and brain derived neurotropic factor and all these things under stress. So your body's adapting under stress. So if there's no stress, you actually longevity is hindered as well because your body is created to react to these stressors and, and to become stronger and build your immune system up and all these other areas up even better. And so that's why spiritual disciplines, or even physical disciplines, I should say that to me, physical and spiritual run parallel. I know spiritual is more important, but if I'm disciplined physically, I'm also going to be disciplined in the spiritual things as well.

I rely on this prayer. It's called the Jesus prayer. It's very simple and pairs well with breath actually. You breathe in and you say, oh Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God. And you breathe out and you say, have mercy on me, a sinner. And you, and you almost develop like this mantra. You breathe in, oh Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. And you begin to just repeat this prayer over and over and over again. And you know, I found that something as simple as that just seems to allow me to be able to retain my focus on God in moments of stress, in moments of sleeplessness, in moments of temptation. And while reading that book on the breath, or it's actually called the Jesus Prayer, she gets into this section where she talks about the link between physical stoicism and physical discipline and spiritual discipline. And she actually, I don't know if it's research that she cites as much as anecdotal data that goes into how people who are athletes or people who have a rigorous physical disciplinary protocol actually tends to be folks who report struggling less with addiction and, and, and succumbing to temptation. And also people who report having an easier time doing things like devotion, prayer, meditation, breathwork, reading the Bible, etc. Because they're just so used to overcoming, let's say like those first two really uncomfortable moments in the gym, or those first super uncomfortable 30 seconds in the cold bath, or you know that marshmallow test at the restaurant when you're not punishing the entire bread bowl as soon as it comes out. And it's kind of the same when you wake up in the morning and you want to flip on your phone and, and start working or.

Delve into the tasks and the business of the day, especially for driven individuals, it feels like kind of taking that step, first step into the gym. There's that same resistance when you are instead dropping to your knees in prayer or opening the Bible before you open your cell phone or doing something that allows you to grow spiritually. For me, every morning it feels the same as a workout and just never goes away. It feels the same as a cold bath and it never goes away. This slight cognitive resistance to starting off the day with something that is spiritually meaningful. Yet I think that the practice of things like self denial from a food standpoint, doing the hard thing and swallowing the frog with the morning workout, getting in the cold bath, even when it's cold, seems to ease that transition into having some kind of a spiritual discipline. It's probably one of the reasons why the apostle Paul says that spiritual training or physical training is of some benefit. Because there's, as you've just noted, some real concrete crossovers, I think, into the spiritual disciplines.

Wow, that's a lot. I've got a lot of thoughts, so cut me off when it's time. But even that verse, yeah, that verse in context, Paul is not saying that physical exercise is not beneficial. All he's saying is listen spiritually. And where you're going spiritually in your relation with God is the priority and the physical will benefit to some degree. And so people use that scripture out of context and say, well, look, it doesn't matter. No, it actually matters a lot to take care of your body and to be physically active. And the whole point that you're just saying, I haven't heard of that book or anything. But the point is, as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. So as you're disciplining yourself to pray and to read things that are God honoring and to not watch the Internet and things at time, these spiritual disciplines have ramifications later. And often we don't do them because we don't feel like it right now. Right. Our feelings. And we have to remember that feelings are the caboose of the train. They're not the engine. Self discipline is the engine of the train. And our feelings, how we feel, that's the caboose of the train. So I think it's so important, as you think is the direction you're going to go. And then finally, you know, there is a lot of. When I did that book on addiction, I did a lot of research, but there's a big connection between, like, gluttony and pornography. You know, gluttony, alcohol and pornography, because you're giving in. You're not remaining disciplined. You're giving in to these fleshly appetites. And then as a result, the flesh gets stronger and stronger, stronger and stronger. And so that, that's definitely tied in. Discipline is so important. It's a biblical principle. It's actually a fruit of the spirit, you know, love, joy, peace, contentment, long suffering, self control, controlling self. But when we make it a work, you know, Christianity, we call works based. We don't want to make it okay, if I do this, you know, for example, if I fast, God's going to love me more. No, he's not, but I'm sure going to love him more. You know, there's, there's, there's. These spiritual disciplines are just absolutely incredible, and they benefit us in a huge way, spiritually speaking.

Oh, yeah. Those of you who might be watching the video of this podcast may have seen me craning my neck just a little bit as Shane was talking, because I was looking back at my bookshelf in my office library. One shelf contains all of the books that I want to come back to that are big heck yeses to reread every one to two years. And one book, I was forgetting the author, which is why I was straining my head. I believe it is. Oh, let's see. Yeah, okay. Yeah, Richard Foster. I want to make sure I got the name right. So Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline is. Oh, yes, there's another guy named Donald Whitney who has a great book on the spiritual disciplines. As a matter of fact, not to toot my own horn, but in my book Endure, which is a book I wrote on the spiritual disciplines, I have this whole anthology of about eight different books that I've read that have taught me all about meditation, silence, solitude, fasting, breath work, et cetera. But this idea of disciplining oneself physically is actually something that, surprisingly, despite you and I talking about, it's important Shane doesn't appear so much in these books on spiritual disciplines, but I would love for more of these books on spiritual discipline to throw in a section on physical disciplines like cold plunges and breath work and heat tolerance and working out, because again, of that crossover. And with my sons, I pray with them each morning. We gather for family Bible reading and meditation about 7:30am each morning. But then I'm very intentional about.

Tossing them in the cold pool. I say that it sounds like I'm just abusing my Children, but it's all voluntary on their part. They follow dad out in the cold pool. I'm intentional about them kind of getting to the point where they're super uncomfortable with high heart rates in the sauna. I'm intentional about breath work. I'm intentional about even when we travel, you know, before we have breakfast, sometimes it's 100 burpees in the Airbnb. But I know that part of that is going to make them stronger and more resilient and, you know, harder to kill, so to speak, from a physical standpoint. But it has direct crossover into their spiritual growth and their ability to be able to do things like resist temptation and to grow spiritually. So I think that in Christian circles sometimes this stuff is underrated or considered to be too much of living carnally or living in the flesh. But in fact, there's a lot of crossover into spiritual growth.

Yeah. And I've got five kids too. 18 down to four. So I'm going to have to, maybe I'm going to see how many of them want to jump in the cold pool with me. And you know, all these points you're making are biblical. As we learn things, as we get wisdom, breathing and meditation, we're not talking about some mystic religion. We're talking about waiting on the Lord and breathing and just spending time and turning off everything so you can hear the voice of God. And those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.

Yeah.

And their spiritual strength is renewed. But yeah, you're right. Discipline.

I think it's because anytime I talk on this, there's always, you know, 1 out of 10 people that get upset because they think like, man, you're too extreme. You're making it like Christianity do all these works when it's just a relationship. Well, true, but because it's a relationship, I want to commit myself and live to the best of my ability. And therefore that's going to require spiritual disciplines and then. And disciplining the body in all areas. Because man, the flesh, given full rule and reign in your life is, is a disaster. Think about it.

Yeah.

How many people sleep in because of the flesh? They go grab a, you know, 600 milligram caffeine venti and then the, the bad donuts. And then now they want In N Out burger. Now I have to lay down. Now I want my three hour Netflix binge. So most people are living their whole day is guided by the flesh. The flesh wants this. What you're talking about is saying, no, stop. Here's what we're going to do instead of and it's called delayed gratification because I don't feel like it right away. But later on, sometimes within minutes, I'm so glad I got up at 3:30 or 4 in the morning and started reading the Bible. But right then it didn't feel good. So we have to remember that the feelings, this is how temptation works. This will be good for some people. Temptation is about immediate gratification right now where spiritual disciplines are about delayed gratification in a little bit after you make the right decision. And that's how temptation gets you, is it? It wants you to experience that immediate gratification whether it's sleeping in or pornography. Pornography is huge for men and women now and there's, there's steps to that as well. I talk about in other books, but it's all connected. It's all connected. A life that's not spiritual, spiritually disciplined is falling apart in many different areas.

Yeah, it's trading short term mouth pleasure or sexual pleasure or physical pleasure for some long term deleterious effects on your overall life. And I actually have a couple of thoughts based on what you were just saying. The first is that I don't talk about this too much on my podcast, but some people are like, well, why would you want to live your life in such a stoic fashion? Like, why would you want to buffet your body each week with a frowny face in the cold pool or pushing the weights around or swinging the kettlebells or doing the heat like this just seems almost like a form of masochism. And I'll admit that it can be. I think that there are even, you know, some social media influencers out there and fitness experts and even probably people listening to this podcast who take things too far, who push their bodies too much, who are on like their 20th Ironman Triathlon and are working out two hours a day to the neglect of relationships or their spiritual walk, or who have fitness and stoicism on almost like too high of a pedestal. But at the same time, yes, it does take a little bit of the pleasure and enjoyment and.

The tasty marshmallows out of your life's experience when you are operating in a spirit of discipline, in a spirit of stoicism, even to the extent where like you were talking about Shane getting up at 3:30 or 4:00am and being slightly more tired all day long compared to maybe your friends who are sleeping until 6 or 7am well, there's two thoughts I have on that. One is obvious, it's that there's not a lot of impactful world leaders and world changers who are not a little bit tired all the time and who also do not have some element of disciplining themselves and passing that marshmallow test. And then secondarily and again, I realize this might alienate some members of my audience who might not believe in eternal life or the message of Christianity, but I believe in a forever life. I believe in eternal bliss forevermore that we experience after we die in the presence of God in heaven, on a brand new heaven and a brand new earth. That's going to be absolutely amazing. And you know what? If me going and doing the hard thing each day transfers over into me being better able to to follow God's law and maintain my spiritual disciplines and that then leads to me being given the opportunity to live forever. Well, I tell you what, I will do cold baths and meditation and reading the Bible and praying and following God's law all day long, if again by the grace of God and not by my own works. That amount of stoicism and discipline that I got to hold onto for 70 or 80 or 90 years is something that is giving me the opportunity to exist for infinity in the presence of God. To me, it's a pretty logical trade off.

Wow, there's so much. I just appreciate what you said and even to piggyback off of some of it, you made a good point. What we believe and I can show through the Bible, historically, prophetically, archeologically, scientifically. I mean, I'm a skeptic by nature. And so you know, with lining up with the Bible.

What we believe is you're not saved because of your works, you saved because of repent. You repent and believe in Jesus that finished work on the cross, but now you have to not work for, but you work out your salvation. In other words, I don't want my testimony to be ruined. I don't want to live a lazy, lethargic, gluttonous lifestyle. That's not biblical either. And so you made a good point about finding that balance because it is hard to find on one extreme is slothful and these people rarity, they don't accomplish much. But then you do have the other extreme where you know, this is. I'll. I probably gravitate towards this side for sure. Probably like you and other type A driven because there's no happy medium. You're always kind of, you know, do I fast too much? Do I do this too much? And so. And we can talk about that in a minute too. How to Find that balance. But my point is the more I and people need to be encouraged to fall forward too. If you think I do everything perfectly, I, I don't think, I mean I fell on most of my fasting, I, I fall off and I. But the key is to get back up and fight again to fall forward. That's really the key. Not about perfection. You got to do this, hey, I'm pursuing Christ and I'm going to fall in the way, but I'm gonna get back up and finish the journey. And spiritual disciplines, you know, with it's basically as you know, sitting is the new smoking. And so if you, if you turn that into spiritual comfort is actually not our friend. If we're too comfortable and hoping to talk to Gary Becker, I think is his name. You mentioned him before.

Gary Breca.

Oh, Breca, Yeah, man, what a lot of great information. But he's right. With comfort, those who are comfortable, you know, you sit more, you don't move as much. Your body really needs to be like fasting doesn't, you know, and kicks in autophagy and telomere growth and brain derived neurotropic factor and all these things under stress. So your body's adapting under stress. So if there's no stress, you don't. You actually longevity is hindered as well because your body is created to react to these stressors and to become stronger and build your immune system up and all these other areas up even better. And so that's why spiritual disciplines or even physical disciplines, I should say that to me, physical and spiritual run parallel. I know spiritual is more important, but if I'm, if I'm disciplined physically, I'm also going to be disciplined in the spiritual things as well. And so just kudos to a lot of what you said. But I think it's important for people to know that we're not saying you have to do all these things, but to finish the race well. And I tell people, do you want to live the last 10, 15 years of your life in a nursing home or hiking and walking and maybe pass away in your sleep or maybe pass away, you know, some other way, but to have the quality of life and to be productive as long as possible. And so yeah, it is. The lifestyle is harder. But think about this. Those who are just, who are not disciplined, they're not, they don't care about what they eat. They don't care about, you know, oh, that's too hard. Well, they also live with a lot of depression because they live in the pain of either experience the pain of regret or the pain of discipline, you're going to experience one of those pains. So, yes. Although being disciplined has its downsides, I guess if you want to say that you're not having as much fun. Me and my wife have these discussions sometimes. You know, she was a sugar addict, complete opposite. And so we kind of meet in the middle. But, you know, there's, there's. You live with some depression. And, man, if I wish I would have gotten shape, I wish I could have been a better grandparent or parent for my kids. I wish I would have. So, you know, there's pain with that as well. It's not. It's not being slothful and lazy, and not doing anything doesn't really lead to wonderful things in the future.