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# Spiritual Disciplines - Part 2
- URL: https://mereorthodoxy.com/spiritual-disciplines-part-2/
- Published: 2005-07-19T13:26:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-04-20T21:39:33.000Z
- Description: Spiritual Disciplines - Part 2
- Author: Mere Orthodoxy
- Tags: Andrew Selby, Anthropology, embodiment, Theology and Practice

My wife, Malea, is an excellent writer and thinker. She has spent much time contemplating and practicing the disciplines and here is what she thinks about them:

Spiritual Disciplines:  
Described and Explained

Spiritual Disciplines aid us in becoming more like Christ and less ruled  
by our flesh. In other words, it is a way to use our bodies to put on the  
fruits of the spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, kindness,  
goodness, faithfulness and self-control) and to free our lives from vices  
or sins. (Pride, envy, anger, laziness, greed, gluttony, and lust, just to  
name a few).

Any soldier or athlete has different disciplines he uses to become better  
at his particular activity. The Christian life is the most fundamental  
part of who we are and so it makes sense that we ought to “train in  
godliness” with even more enthusiasm and fervor than in any other  
activity. God made us to be a certain sort of person—one who is constantly  
yielding to Him and yet becoming more and more himself (with the  
personality and the gifts God has given). The fullness of joy, for a  
human, is only found when we “put off the things of the old life” and “put  
on the character of Christ.” We must, like Paul, “beat our bodies into  
submission.” (1 Cor 9:27)

It is important to understand that the things we give up for the purpose  
of training our bodies are not bad in and of themselves. They either have  
too much control over us, or are a way to gauge how strong certain desires  
are in our life and how much they control us. Eating is not a bad  
activity, neither is dressing nice, nor making a lot of money, but it may  
be good to give all of them up at different times to see how much they  
control our lives.

Also, different disciplines may be more or less helpful for different  
people based on our various temperaments and areas of struggle. Even  
within ourselves, the sins each of us needs to master in our lives will  
most likely change over time. Younger men may need to fast often to  
overcome lustful desires, whereas a middle aged man may need solitude from  
his busy work schedule to learn to be understanding towards his wife and  
children, (hold his temper, set the direction of his family) and an older  
man may need to overcome his grumpy desires and speak kindly or commit  
himself to study of God’s Word. Within our lives, God takes us through so  
many different circumstances and we should constantly be looking to  
cultivate godly qualities, and overcome our sinful/selfish desires.  
There are two main divisions of spiritual disciplines—those of abstinence  
and those of engagement. A simple way of thinking of them is that  
abstaining from things helps us to overcome bad desires and actions, while  
engaging in certain disciplines can help us develop good desires and  
actions.