The Limits of a Rule of Life
LETTER BY BRIAN MORYKON
I vaguely recall writing my first rule of life fifteen years ago.
I searched for it this morning, expecting to find the artifact of an overachiever — an ambitious life plan destined to be filed on the shelf of good intentions (a.k.a. the shelf-of-shame).
Instead I found this:
—–
Every day
practice the Presence
reflect on the day (examen)
Weekdays
do something physical
Once a week
gather with others in Jesus’s name
choose a verse to memorize + meditate on
screen-free Sabbath
Once a month
morning of soltiude
meet with spiritual director
Twice a year
two-night retreat
When necessary
have hard conversations
—–
Not bad, young Brian, not bad. It’s a little anemic in community and service, but overall doable and life-giving.
Even though I didn’t hang on to this particular document, it set rhythms and practices I still live by. And surveying the last fifteen years, I can spot times of unnecessary dryness when one or more of these practices were neglected.
I say “unnecessary” because there are of course unavoidable desert seasons that no set of practices can mitigate. Life levels us all at one point or another.
So it’s good to remember the limits of a rule of life. It doesn’t keep you safe. It earns you nothing with God. It can be the devil’s scale by which you are weighed and found wanting… or winning — an instrument for either shame or pride. And it can be a self-help power tool for turning spiritual formation into what Comer calls “Project Me.”
Still, I recommend writing one.
Why?
Because, like a church liturgy, everyone has one whether they know it or not. Habits are our unwritten, often unexamined rules. Holy habits rarely happen by accident. A rule of life helps us break out of mindless rhythms and fall in step with Jesus.
There’s an important prerequisite to writing and following a rule: being fully steeped in the acceptance and goodness of God. This prevents it from becoming “one more way I’m disappointing God.”
One final word about a rule of life. This is a topic about which I know very little, so I offer it as a conversation starter…
The Rule of Saint Benedict, from which most modern ideas of a rule trace their origin, was a practical guide for monastic living in community. Brother Joe didn’t take a retreat day in his monastery cell to write up a rule for living his best life; he lived by the Rule of the community for the sake of Christ and his brothers.
How does that translate into our day, into our individual rules and the written or unwritten rules of our churches? I have no idea, but many on the Renovaré team and many of you are pondering and praying into that. We’ll share findings as they emerge.
In the meantime, a prayer… Father, help us by your Spirit to order the coming days of Advent so there is room for Christ to be formed in us (Gal 4.19) — for your glory and the world’s good.
Brian Morykon
Director of Communications
P.S. The most immersive program that Renovaré offers for ordering your life in the way of Jesus is Renovaré Institute. The deadline to apply for the 2025 cohort, with residencies in Charlotte, is only six weeks away (Feb 1). Learn more and apply here.
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LET’S DIVE IN...
CURATED BY GRACE POUCH
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1.
Join us for our January 23 workshop, Cultivating a Rule of Life. Renovaré Ministry Team and RI faculty member Jonathan Bailey will guide us through the framework for human flourishing known as a Rule and help us adapt it to our journey with Christ.
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2.
“Disciplines of the spiritual life can be for us a means of receiving God’s grace,” writes Richard Foster. “But there are pitfalls that can hinder our way. That is why I often speak of the Disciplines as the dangerous life of the Spirit.” Foster warns of seven pitfalls, not to deter us from discipline, but to guide our steps in the good way.
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3.
Explore the rhythm of life under the Rule of St. Benedict. The simple beauty of the Rule’s balance of work, prayer, and reading appeals to us as a balm in the midst of a sin-sick, busy world.
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4.
Are you a tourist or a pilgrim? Eugene Peterson writes, “There is a great market for religious experience in our world; there is little enthusiasm for the patient acquisition of virtue, little inclination to sign up for a long apprenticeship in what earlier generations of Christians called holiness.”
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5.
Practicing the Way has an online Rule of Life Builder to help people craft a set of habits and rhythms patterned after Jesus.
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6.
Any Rule of Life that is God-centered leads to love. Renovaré’s retreat for pastors is named “First Love” because the work-side of ministry can compete with the relational-side — even drawing us away from the loving communion that sustains our lives and empowers our service in the kingdom.
Grace Pouch
Content Manager
WORTH QUOTING
“Millions of people in our culture make decisions for Christ, but there is a dreadful attrition rate.”
– Eugene Peterson
A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society
(source)
TO CONTEMPLATE
St. Benedict repairs a Broken Colander through Prayer
Giovanni Antonio Bazzi c. 1502
(source)
Benedict’s prayer-filled life wasn’t otherworldly. Rather, it rooted him in communion with the heavenly Father, who cares about our practical concerns. Even our broken colanders, apparently. It might sound a little silly — calling on God to help with broken kitchen tools. But why not? I’m reminded of how God helped Elisha to make an ax head float when his little community lost theirs in the river. (2 Kings 6:1 – 7) Nothing is too practical to pray about. A person who has arranged his or her schedule around prayer — that grounding, love-sparking exercise — will find it more natural to carry communion with God into all the corners of daily life.
TO PONDER
Is there something that you’ve “filed on the shelf of good intentions (a.k.a. the shelf-of-shame)” that simply needs some practical planning? Sift the idea in prayer to make sure it’s from the Lord, then plot the steps you’ll need to take to do it.