What Is Your Trellis

Again he asked, “What shall I compare the kingdom of God to? It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough.”
                  - Luke 13:20-21

Yeast is really small. 60 pounds of flour is an enormous amount of flour (when you combine the water with the flour to make the dough it would weigh about 120 pounds - enough for 50 loaves of bread!). 

Jesus seems to think that the Kingdom of God, when it breaks in to our lives, has a big impact. It changes our entire lives. So the question is, how does the Kingdom of God break into our lives? This week we're going to reflect on some of the regular ways we see God doing that. In particular, we're going to look at what are called Spiritual Disciplines.

Spiritual leader Dallas Willard writes that "a discipline is an activity in our power, which we pursue in order to become able to do what we cannot do by direct effort." The discipline (or some say the 'spiritual practice') forms a structure by which the soul can grow. St. John of the Cross called spiritual disciplines a 'trellis' - like you'd use for growing a grape vine or bougainvillea. The trellis is a lattice made of wood and it gives something for the living vine to hold on to and grow up. In the same way, spiritual disciplines provide some structure for the soul to grow. Having the spiritual discipline doesn't mean you grow - that comes from God. But they can be helpful to create the space for God to grow you.

Practical Step: Consider this spiritual discipline for the week: reading the daily devotional each day and praying at the end of it.

Ask God for guidance of how to make small, practical changes to your life to structure yourself for growth, so that the Kingdom of God might break in.