Spiritual Fitness Challenge DAY 358

Day 358 - October 24th

FASTING

Spend the best day this week fasting.

Spiritual Fitness Challenge DAY 328

Day 328 - September 25th

FASTING

Spend the best day this week fasting.

Spiritual Fitness Challenge DAY 298

Day 298 - August 25th

FASTING

Spend the best day this week fasting.

Spiritual Fitness Challenge DAY 280

Day 280 - August 16th

GUIDANCE

One day as soon as you can, go away for the day by yourself and spend some time thinking about you future steps – dedicating them to God and asking for His guiding word. You could dedicate the next year or next 3months to His guidance. It is important to do this maybe 2 or 3 times a year. Go somewhere you like and feel like you have got away, like the beach.

Spiritual Fitness Challenge DAY 268

Day 268 - July 26th

FASTING

Spend the best day this week fasting.

Spiritual Fitness Challenge DAY 238

Day 238 - June 26th

FASTING

Spend the best day this week fasting.

Spiritual Fitness Challenge DAY 208

Day 208 - May 27th

FASTING

Spend the best day this week fasting.

Spiritual Fitness Challenge DAY 178

Day 178 - April 27th

FASTING

Spend the best day this week fasting.

Spiritual Fitness Challenge DAY 160

Day 160 - April 16th

GUIDANCE

One day as soon as you can, go away for the day by yourself and spend some time thinking about you future steps – dedicating them to God and asking for His guiding word. You could dedicate the next year or next 3months to His guidance. It is important to do this maybe 2 or 3 times a year. Go somewhere you like and feel like you have got away, like the beach.

Spiritual Fitness Challenge DAY 148

Day 148 - March 28th

FASTING

Spend the best day this week fasting.

Spiritual Fitness Challenge DAY 118

Day 118 - February 28th?

FASTING

Spend the best day this week fasting.

Spiritual Fitness Challenge DAY 98

Day 98 - February 10th

GET TO KNOW YOU - PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

Think back to day 67 and 68. Recall your pathway. Today spend time investing in your pathway in whatever way you see best. Of anyone on this earth you know yourself best, so invest in your relationship with God in the way he designed you to today.

Spiritual Fitness Challenge DAY 91

Day 91 - February 1st

SERVICE/SUBMISSION

There is a service in being served. In the scripture John 13, Peter found it very difficult to allow Jesus to wash his feet:

'He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?"

⁷Jesus replied, "You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand."

⁸"No," said Peter, "you shall never wash my feet."

Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you, you have no part with me." '

This week, actively allow someone to serve you. It could be where you find it difficult to submit control over a task, to trust and allow that person to serve.

Spiritual Fitness Challenge DAY 90

Day 90 - January 31st

SOLITUDE

Spend some time today by yourself. Remove any distractions. During this time write a letter to yourself containing both encouragements and challenges. Put this letter in a self addressed envelope and give it to a trusted friend. Ask them to post this letter to you in a couple of months or so. When you receive it, spend some time reflecting on the challenges and encouragements.

Spiritual Fitness Challenge DAY 89

Day 89 - January 30th

STUDY

Share with a friend(s) a bible verse that has encouraged/ challenged you in some way. The sharing of scripture has such a powerful effect of bringing it to life as we see how these words have affected our lives.

Spiritual Fitness Challenge DAY 88

Day 88 - January 29th

FASTING

How did you find fasting the last time round? It is a difficult thing to do if you are not well practiced. Pick the best day this week again, when you are not too active, and fast for the whole day. Ignore the cries of your stomach, they are much like the cried of a spoiled child. Starvation does not kick in until around 2weeks of no food so a day is little! Do drink water.

This discipline will come around once a month in this challenge. If you feel you can do it more often then great. If, for health reasons you feel you cannot then no worries. Perhaps replace this discipline with cutting out something else in your life such as a TV programme.

Spiritual Fitness Challenge DAY 87

Day 87 - January 28th

SIMPLICITY

Watch this video. This is a good video with a real challenge. We fill our lives with so much and can be so busy all the time. Busyness can be deceptive, it can even be that we are so busy with God's work. But God did not call us to be busy, he called us to be fruitful. Think about that today and maybe do a little less filling and little more clearing!

Spiritual Fitness Challenge DAY 86

Day 86 - January 27th

PRAYER

Spend some time today doing a prayer walk in your house. Go in to each room and take time listening to what God has to say and then to speak the appropriate prayers of protection. It is good to do this with whoever else lives in the house if you can.

spiritual Fitness Challenge DAY 85

Day 85 - January 26th

MEDITATION

Spend some time looking at this famous painting of 'The Light of the World' by Holman Hunt. It is truly an amazing painting. To me it was the highlight of an exhibition called 'Seeing Salvation' at The National Gallery in the spring of the year 2000.

Hunt himself said of the painting (for which he felt he needed to explain the symbolism):

'The closed door was the obstinately shut mind; the weeds the cumber of daily neglect, the accumulated hindrance of sloth;...the bat flitting about only in darkness was a natural symbol of ignorance.' and when asked why the door had no handle outside, he replied:'It is the door of the human heart, and that can only be opened from the inside.'

We can often let the state of hearts become much like the door. Overgrown and inhospitable. Christ does not force his way in to our lives (which is why there is no handle on the outside of the door in the painting). We must let him in. It is our choice. Spend time today clearing the door to your heart and let Christ in.

Spiritual Fitness Challenge DAY 84

Day 84 - January 25th

PRAYER

The prayer of St Francis of Assisi has had a huge influence. It has been adapted into the famous 12 step Alcoholics Anonymous programme and can be found in chapter 11. It has also been made into a hymn that is traditionally sung once a year in the Royal Albert Hall at the service of remembrance in November by The Royal British Legion. The song is named 'Make me a channel of your peace'. Many different versions of the prayer exist. The most popular is the following:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love;

for it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

Reflect on the prayer and think of areas in your life to which it applies and pray into them.