Imagine swimming at a quiet river in the summer with your friends and family. You grab an inner-tube to lay on while you float down the river while basking in the warm sun. After a few minutes of relaxing, you realize that the stream has carried you further down the river away from your group. You can’t just keep floating down, so you get out of the inflatable and swim up stream toward your family. But getting to your family is now more difficult. You see, the river is flowing against you. You have to exert more effort and actively swim to get back to where you were.

 

This illustration of the river is helpful for understanding how spiritual practices work in the life of the individual Christian. There are many different disciplines we as apprentices of Jesus need to incorporate into our lives in order to really grow and transform into the likeness of Jesus. Here’s the tricky part – not all practices are of the same value or take the same amount of effort for each disciple. In other words, some spiritual disciplines are easier for some people than for others.

 

For instance, someone who is a natural introvert will find that the discipline of silence and solitude easier for them than extroverts who thrive on being around people. In a similar way, someone who is described as a perfectionist will find it difficult to practice Sabbath or journaling. Now, does this mean that extroverts just need to avoid time alone with God or the high achiever needs to dodge confession of sin? The answer is “no.” We need to be aware enough of our own weaknesses and which disciplines we need to work on. Let’s put it this way. If I’m an extrovert and need to get some momentum going in my walk with the Lord, I would practice my downstream disciplines, which would be feasting, celebration, and community. Because having fun with friends is something that is easy for me to do and brings me joy, I want to practice this often. However, I can’t just practice downstream disciplines. In order to have a fully integrated spiritual life, I am going to need to have to lean into my weaknesses so I can build that muscle with upstream disciplines. Even though practicing silence and solitude and centering prayer would be harder for me, when I practice these at the right time, exponential growth will happen.

 

Now that we see the vision for the river of spiritual disciplines, let’s backtrack and see what the first step is. First, we need to do some inner work of self-evaluation and self-reflection. How do you think God wired you with your personality? What are some things that others praise you for as strengths? Has there been anyone in your life that has called out your weaknesses or sins? What were they? Have you taken any personality assessments? What were the results? Write down all of this information. I would recommend discovering the following about yourself:

Here are some things that I’ve jotted down after doing research on the Enneagram and MBTI about how each type can see their upstream and downstream disciplines: