Friday night and Saturday morning I led a retreat with the Vestry of our church. A vestry is the lay leadership group, in our case, nine men and women, who are responsible for guiding the church and decision making.
Friday night we reviewed the concept of "Rule of Life." The reason for a rule of life is that we want to live intentionally. It helps us to actually make choices and engage in behaviors in light of our purpose in life.
For some of us most of the time and most of us some of the time our lfe is a series of accidents. We do not really have a conscious goal. We are determined by circumstances and situations over which we have no control. And we make decisions in a haphazard way which are not connected to any sense of purpose.
We have wishes and dreams. We have hopes and desires. We just do not have a goal or a plan. Fortunately, in many cases, we are attuned to God enough that we still end up leading a life which makes some sense. We are aware of faith and morality and so we do trust God and try to "act right." But we end up praying, studying and doing in a haphazard way and it always depends on spare time and personal motivation overlapping. That is why in the past week the typical Christian has done very lttle praying, studying, service or evangelizing. We know that stuff is important. We just do not do it.
As our culture becomes more hostile to Christian life and faith, it will be less likely that any of us, struggling to believe and trying to be faithful, will engage in the disciplines of the Christian life, unless we are commited to a rule of life.
As we reflect on the true state of our soul and the actual lived-out relationship with have with God, it should be clear that all of us need to improve. In the days ahead I want to provide some models for a rule of life.
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