This past year I had the pleasure of spending some time one on one with a couple of different students, Felipe and David (not their real names).  Ostensibly, they approached me because they wanted my input into their lives because of my obvious “wisdom.”  In both cases, however, I was deeply moved, inspired and challenged by what God was doing in their lives.  Specifically, they helped me think more broadly about what spiritual disciplines are.  Their choices in response to the leading of the Holy Spirit shed light on the transformative power of God in the midst of daily life.

Felipe is a fairly typical sophomore.  He’s got his major figured out, but hasn’t really figured out how to manage college life well.  Consequently, he ended up on academic probation this year.  Additionally, some important relationships weren’t going well.  For the first time in life, he’s struggling and his naturally positive attitude isn’t enough.  One day Felipe showed up in my office missing his goatee, so I asked him why he shaved.  After a long pause, he explained that he thought of facial hair as a sign of manhood.  Since he didn’t feel like he was living his life in a mature way that was reflective of godly manhood, he decided to shave his goatee.  As we talked further about his decision, it was clear that this was not a decision made rashly or a sign of self-pity.  Felipe made this decision as an act of faith, an act of conviction.  It was a specific act made in response to the Holy Spirit, designed to remind him of an area of life that needed work.  In many ways, that could describe what spiritual disciplines are.

Shortly after this conversation with Felipe, I ran into David before a chapel service.  David is a straight-laced freshman from a pretty conservative background, so I was surprised to see his normally dark hair dyed blonde.  When I asked him about it, he paused for a bit before explaining his choice.  He told me that he had realized that he was pretty judgmental, specifically about people who dyed their hair.  Feeling convicted about his attitude, he decided that he needed to identify with the people he was judging.  He was hoping that dying his own hair would help him release his tendency to judge others.  I asked how it was going.  He said, “I’ll never judge the way people look again.  It’s amazing how many people comment about my hair, and I don’t like it.”  Changing his hair color was a tool God was using in his life to change his heart.

Just as with Felipe, David chose a specific action in response to the convicting work of the Holy Spirit as a way of highlighting (no pun intended) an area of his life that needed change.  I think both of these young men unknowingly stumbled into spiritual disciplines in their most basic forms.  They didn’t choose to fast or leave for a silent retreat.  They discovered disciplines in the midst of their lives, not in disengagement from their lives.  While we need disciplines of disengagement, I believe their actions exemplify the heart of spiritual formation—allowing the Holy Spirit to convict and change us in the most basic parts of our lives.  Our students need this vision of spiritual formation in the most mundane parts of life.

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Rod Reed is the University Chaplain at John Brown University.  He leads the Office of Christian Formation in developing programs and processes that help students grow spiritually.  He also organizes the chapel planning process.  Mostly, he loves getting to know students and helping them develop an ever-growing relationship with Christ that is big enough for whatever life brings.  When he’s not in his office, the classroom, or the Cathedral, you might find him playing ping pong at one of the tables on campus.  He and his wife Michelle have four children.