Dr. Whitney and the Courage to Honor God Through Suffering

In this thoughtful and deeply personal episode of Courageous Crossroads, Jeff Johnson sits down with Dr. Donald S. Whitney to explore biblical courage, spiritual formation, prayer, Scripture meditation, and faithful obedience in the hardest seasons of life. Dr. Whitney defines courage as the willingness to do what God calls us to do despite fear, consequences, or personal cost, and he illustrates that definition through the most courageous season of his own life: caring for his mother through the final years of dementia while seeking to honor her, support his wife, and remain obedient to the Lord. Along the way, he offers practical wisdom on Scripture intake, praying the Bible, meditation, the fear of man, and how the ordinary means of grace sustain believers when life becomes painful and confusing. Dr. Whitney serves as Professor of Biblical Spirituality and the John H. Powell Professor of Pastoral Ministry at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and he is the founder and director of the Center for Biblical Spirituality; after decades of pastoral ministry and seminary teaching, he is widely known for helping Christians pursue godliness through biblical spiritual disciplines.

Amazon links to selected books by Dr. Whitney: Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life; Praying the Bible; Family Worship: In the Bible, in History, and in Your Home; Ten Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health; How Can I Be Sure I’m a Christian?: The Satisfying Certainty of Eternal Life; Simplify Your Spiritual Life;
Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life Study Guide. 

Clickable Amazon Book Links
– Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life
– Praying the Bible
– Family Worship: In the Bible, in History, and in Your Home
– Ten Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health
– How Can I Be Sure I’m a Christian?: The Satisfying Certainty of Eternal Life
– Simplify Your Spiritual Life
– Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life Study Guide

Source note: Prepared from the Courageous Crossroads interview transcript supplied in this conversation. Amazon inventory and
pricing can change over time.

Thank you for listening! We hope you feel inspired and encouraged by our conversation today. If you did, be sure to share this episode with others.

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See you in the next episode! Be blessed!

Full Transcript

ANNOUNCER: Welcome to Courageous by Crossroads Apologetics, a look into what motivates us to step out and courage, and the everyday bravery of men and women like you. In each episode, we hear a personal story of bravery centered around this question. What’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done? And now your host, founder of Crossroads Apologetics, Jeff Johnson.

JEFF JOHNSON: Hey everybody, this is Jeff. Welcome back to another edition of the Courageous Crossroads podcast. I’ve missed you. I’ve been off for a few weeks, curating new material and taking care of some other business. And it’s so good to be back and I cannot wait for you to jump in and listen to my next guest. Donald Whitney is the author of Spiritual Disciplines. And this is a book that I’m not kidding. I mean it has really revolutionized my life. Certainly has changed my Bible reading habits all to the good and really infused me with a hunger for spiritual disciplines. And he’s written a bunch of other books that we’re going to talk about in this episode. But I cannot wait for you to hear more from Dr. Whitney. So let me hush up here and we’ll go ahead and jump into the podcast. So good to be back. So welcome everybody to the Courageous Crossroads podcast. I have an absolute pleasure of having Dr. Donald Whitney as our guest today. And I’m going to do something that I don’t typically do. I’m going to read from read a bio from biblical spirituality.org that introduces Dr. Whitney in a really good way. Let me read this for you. Don Whitney serves as the professor of biblical spirituality and the John H. Powell professor of pastoral ministry at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri. He’s also the founder and director of the Center for Biblical spirituality. Previously he served as professor of spiritual formation at Midwestern Seminary from 1995 to 2005. Then as professor of biblical spirituality and associate dean for the school of theology at Southern Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky from 2005 to 2024. Before becoming a seminary professor, Whitney Pastor Glenn Field Baptist Church in Glenn, Ellen Illinois, a suburb of Chicago from nearly 15 years. In total, he is dedicated 24 years to pastoral ministry and local churches, both full time and part time. He’s the author of spiritual disciplines for the Christian life, which includes a companion discussion guide. He’s also written several other books designed to help believers grow in their walk with Christ. That’s the introduction off of the web page. Now here’s the introduction from Jeff. You guys can’t see this because this is audio only podcast, but I’m holding in my hand a dog-eared weathered, worn copy of spiritual disciplines for the Christian life, which I have read through and highlighted and enumerated. I don’t know how many times before I was handed this book several years ago. I had I had hunted and packed in the Bible and I found a lot of good in there, but I had never been through the thing in total. And once I read through this, Dr. Whitney, I read through your book. I was inspired with a suggested reading plan that you have in here and I’ve read through the Bible. I think I just completed my 13th trip all the way through beginning to end. And I promise I’m going to stop talking here in a second, but it’s just I’m over the moon to have you as a guest. What I do is I go through the Bible and I highlight it. Little things that the Lord brings to light, just things that are inspiring to me or questions that I might have I put in the margin. And by the time I’m done reading through that entire Bible, it’s got a couple of tear stains in it, some coffee stains in it, some sweat stains from my fingers, and all these highlights and these marks and these notes. And I open up the cover of the book and I dedicate it to one of my kids. And I say to them, this book changed my life. If you will read this book, it’ll change your life to love, dad. And then I hand it to him. Each one of my kids has a couple of different versions, you know, an NIV or a ESV or a new living translation or I’ve even read through the message one time, the new King James version, all these different versions because of your reading plan. And I’ve handed it out to other people so much so that I’m handing it out to people that are outside of my family now too. Just as an encouragement for them to read the Bible because you’ve made that so possible for me. So, so too much of an introduction, Dr. Whitney, thank you so much and thank you for joining us here today on the podcast.

DR. WHITNEY: Well, thanks for having me, Jeff. It’s great to have this introduction to you. And I looked over your website looks like the Lord has been using this podcast and pleasure to be on it.

JEFF JOHNSON: Wonderful, wonderful. We center around the main question. What’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done? But I’ve got a couple of questions for you and especially given your expertise and the things that you’ve written on spiritual disciplines, all of the work that you’ve done over decades. I wanted to ask a couple of questions as we lead up to that. The first one being, how would you define courage from a biblical standpoint and how does that differ from the world’s definition maybe?

DR. WHITNEY: Oh, wasn’t prepared for that. I guess courage from a biblical standpoint would be the willingness to do what God tells you to do. That can be from just something plain command of scripture applied to a specific situation to a if you will, but we sometimes call an impression just a moving in your spirit that seems to be of a Lord that you should go share the gospel with this person, for example, or take this stand. So the willingness to do what God wants you to do despite the fear associated with it, consequences.

JEFF JOHNSON: And how does that differ from the worldly perspective?

DR. WHITNEY: Well, God is absent from that picture from that definition in a worldly perspective.

JEFF JOHNSON: Or conscience, conscious alone driven.

DR. WHITNEY: Yeah.

JEFF JOHNSON: Do you think courage is given what you just said then? I like that. Do you think courage is virtue that we develop or is it just a gift that we receive or is it something else entirely?

DR. WHITNEY: Well, I mean, we have to admit, you know, in our flesh, there was no good thing. Bible says so we have ultimately give glory to God for anything we do that is right and good. Yeah, I think it does have to be cultivated. Some sense you read the Bible. And the Bible says, I need to do this, am I going to do that or not? And you begin to develop a conviction that yes, you must do what God says, regardless of the cost. In essence, when you first become a believer that that’s part of it, you’re saying, I’m going to turn from myself, my will, what I want to the Lord and to his will and what he wants. The position is cultivated more and more as you come under the authority of scripture that solar scriptura from the reformation scripture alone is the final authority and all matters of faith and practice. And when you come to Christ, you believe that you believe the scriptures are true, what they say about Jesus, his claims, his life, his death, you believe that is true.

JEFF JOHNSON: following all of what he’s saying about putting his word first and having a high view of the book. Do you see a lack of that courage in the church today?

DR. WHITNEY: Yeah, good. Well, I mean, I don’t know how to evaluate that because I don’t see a tiny slice no matter how much I travel or how aware I am of Christian news, if you will. And so it’s easy to criticize the church so it’s easy to criticize the church for its lack of courage. But I mean, even in some churches that try to be faithful to the Bible and are conservative, try to be consistent, you can say I see a lack of loving biblical church discipline, which when I was thinking through your question, how to answer this, what’s the most courteous thing ever done? One of the first things that came to mind was as a pastor the first time we led any church. But the church I was pastoring and the first time that church had been led through the practice of loving biblical church discipline that required a lot of courage for the pastor to do that and for the church to do that. So yeah, there’s a common lack of courage there. Do not fear man. The Bible says that that’s assumed within the church as well. So yeah, it’s easy to say a lot of courage lacking.

JEFF JOHNSON: And is it abundance?

DR. WHITNEY: Well, yeah, I can think of other places. So I mean, it’s impossible question to be for the answer to be verifiable. You can find a lot of indications either way.

JEFF JOHNSON: I wondered if it was a little bit of an unfair question, even as I wrote it because I thought, obedience is the objective obedience to God’s word. And then the courage that it takes, you know, based on what you just said, the courage that it takes to follow through with that. And then the Bible says all of a sudden I’m falling short of the glory of God. So I suppose it’s just a matter of degree constantly and all the time. And that’s what we’re about and trying to pursue the things of the Lord.

DR. WHITNEY: Yeah.

JEFF JOHNSON: Is there one more before the big question? Is there a difference between moral courage and physical courage and which just scripture emphasize more?

DR. WHITNEY: Well, there is a difference. There’s an often an overlap overlap. And sure, the scripture is going to emphasize moral courage doing the right thing, making the right stand. And that’s often far more internal than it is physical courage. I think that’s kind of intuitive. People see the difference courage on a battlefield is one of the highest forms of courage, but it is different than what Luther did. Here I stand, I can do no other God help me. And where he took standing, you know, they said, everybody, every church father, everything is against you. You’re a position, Luther. And he said, well, if it comes down to Martin Luther, the control-mondem in Martin Luther against the whole world. Conscience, I violate my conscience, isn’t either right or safe. Here I stand, I can do no other. The whole world is against me. This is where I have to come down. That’s moral courage. And that’s there’s qualitative difference there and battlefield courage or other types of courage. So yeah, there’s a difference. There’s a lot of overlap, but the Bible would emphasize moral courage, of course, far more.

JEFF JOHNSON: Wonderful. Okay, well, that brings us to the primary question then, Dr. Donald Whitney, what is the most religious thing you’ve ever done?

DR. WHITNEY: I think you would have to be caring for my mother in the final eight years of her life, from diagnosis, actually, the presentation of dementia was there before it’s diagnosed, but from first presentation to death, cared for her. I’m an only child, so that’s, that’s all to me. My dad had died many years earlier. So my wife and I undertook that responsibility. I did not want to pressure my wife to invite my mother to live with us because I soon most the responsibility would follow my wife. My dad had died in 1985, so we’re going to go forward until 2009 before she, yeah, she came to live with us. Or that’s when it began. I think it was, oh, no, no, I would have to look. She died in August of 2018, and it was about seven years. So maybe we’re back to 2011, but anyway, my mother had lived alone as a widow in a small town in Arkansas from 1985 until, so what, you know, 25 years, a little over. So she lived actually as a widow longer than she was, she was married. And, but she had a lot of friends. She lived in this small town since the late 50s. And so everyone in town knew her. She had very close relationships in the church. So she was able to survive well by herself. But then my wife suggested Christmas, why don’t we invite your mother to live with us? And so I got on the phone and I said, no pressure, you know, I have to think, decide right now, you give it some thought. And her next word was yes. So apparently she’d been thinking about this for a long time and was ready. And frankly, it surprised me. She was so entrenched in how she lived in for 40 years and in small town, but it was time. So the next, well, 11 months later, I went down and followed her back in her car to our home near Louisville. And so she first moved into the house. We were having an apartment. We were converting a large garage in the back to an apartment. But it was still going to be, we thought six months away. And it turned out to be longer than that. So she lived in the bedroom above hours for the majority of a year. I should also had that my wife’s mother was living with us in our house at the same time. And it dealing with dementia. So there’s an overlap of six months. Where both mothers were in our home. We were caring for them. My wife’s mother went back for the final six months to a year, forget her life back to her son’s house. But my mother stayed in the house for about a year, finally went to the apartment in our backyard and stayed there several more years. But the final three years of her life were in a memory care facility. And she and my wife, used to get along wonderfully. I’ve pictures of them with their heads together, you know, leaning into each other. And my wife, as I said, was the one who initiated, why don’t we bring her here? They used to be so close. Well, within a month, Jeff, that relationship was totally destroyed. We found out later from close friends back in Arkansas where she lived, that she had been changing and we did not know it. So the dementia was already, you know, setting in. And that was manifested intensely when she moved. You’re aware of the fact that when people have dementia, often there’s a, at any significant changes in their lives, a move, health issue, often can bring them down another level. Well, that really happened through, I mean, moving’s hard for anybody, but this is a woman in her 80s alone, you know, like five feet tall, 90 pounds, or her to have to sell her house. Really, the only time in her life, you have to do that alone, move to different states. So she just immediately had a cognitive, you know, lowering diminution. And the first way that manifested was, was an anger we’d never seen before. And it finally just totally distorted relationship with my wife. And the reason why I chose the fact that this was most courageous thing and so difficult is I, as I said, I didn’t want to initiate with my wife. Why don’t we have my mother come and live with us? Because I send most responsibility with follow my wife. I had a job teaching at the seminary. I was traveling a lot and I knew it’d fall on her. And I didn’t want for her to feel any pressure of that. When she initiated it, I said, okay, well, within a month, now I’ve got to be the primary caregiver. My wife took the brunt of the anger for the first four years or so, because she wasn’t home. Mother, of course, was at home, even though most of that was in her apartment in the backyard, but they had a lot of interaction and it was hard and only got harder, became very intense. But then I would come home that that would mean I’m kind of the mediator between two very upset people. And then in the final three years, I was the one who would have to go to the facility and to care for her there, to bring things to her, to do things for her while I was there, the one to visit. And it just got harder and harder, of course, as it does in this kind of situation. And I had to do things and see things. A son should never have to see or do. And it… Go ahead, you know what I mean? The motivation was, this is God’s will. God wants me to do this. I’m to honor my father and mother to the very end. But man, was it hard?

JEFF JOHNSON: Wow, wow. Thank you for sharing that, Dr. Whitney. And I’m so sorry that you had to go through all that. You and your wife, I shared with you on an email beforehand that my mother likewise passed away. It’s ironic that my mother passed away in October of 2018. I’m 58 years old. My mom died quite young. She was 75 and she was in a memory care unit as well. And I’m very familiar with what you’re talking about to have the personality changes. Ironically, my mother was, we didn’t have the best relationship growing up, but when she, when I was her primary caregiver, that changed and kind of softened a little bit. So I was able to get close to my mom towards the end. And it sounds like the opposite happened with your mom. But I know that it’s often more difficult on the caregivers. I’m curious, was there? What got you through that? I mean, what was the thing that authored the courage to push you through that? Was it a specific spiritual discipline? Or was it a closeness with the Lord crying out to him? I mean, what was it?

DR. WHITNEY: Well, through the spiritual disciplines, which, you know, maintained, that’s where we experienced God in some of the most consistent ways. And he did. And so they did their job, if you will, by engaging in the spiritual disciplines, both the personal and interpersonal spiritual disciplines. The Lord sustained me through those biblical means of sustaining grace. And that includes, well, and then let me say my wife also, of course, she knew how difficult it was because she had endured just some, man, it’s just unspeakable things that my mother would say or believe. And you know it’s, you don’t want to say it’s not her. We often do that. We all know what we mean by that. I think that can depersonalize someone. It is her, but with a profoundly changed biology, you know, with a brain that’s not functioning normally. But in any of it, when something comes out of her mouth and it’s awful, it’s still her face, it’s still her voice.

JEFF JOHNSON: Right.

DR. WHITNEY: Looks and sounds like her, you know, the old her. But you know, it’s not. And so it was difficult to maintain that distinction that normally my mother would not do this. She would not say this, but she’s saying it right now and she looks like, she looks like her. So my wife’s support for me, it was another great means. But it was just, there were times, Jeff. I mean, I would come to my brothers and Christ, my colleagues at seminary who knew what is going through because Tuesdays and Thursdays I would leave after class. I would go to the facility and before I’m going there, I’m often talking with them and just the stress, the difficulty and I would crowd their shoulders and they were very supportive. So the Lord just used the, if you will, the ordinary means of grace, the spiritual disciplines, which include the interpersonal spiritual disciplines, which is to say the people. Yeah. Talking, praying with people, his people. And that’s how the Lord just made me through it.

JEFF JOHNSON: It’s a powerful testimony that you were such a good son and stayed by your mother through that. We’re done and I completely, yeah, I mean, I empathize you’re making me think back and I can remember so many different interactions that just came out of left field. And I just had to plant my feet and continue to be of service because that’s just what I had to do. There wasn’t any other option. You know, in apologetics, one of the primary questions is, why does God allow evil and suffering? I’m curious because you’re so steeped in the spiritual disciplines and you’ve done, you’ve got such a body of work in that. Did your faith ever waver? Did you ever go outside and shout at the rain? And, you know, what is this all about, Lord? And if you did, what brought you back to him?

DR. WHITNEY: Yeah, shouted in the car a lot, especially after some episodes. It was, it was often, Lord, why does this have to be prolonged? I guess I can be taken in a very bad way. It’s not like I wanted her dead. I just wanted this horrible existence she had and by extension to me that I had responsibilities in. I was just ready for that relief. And if you’ve not been in a situation like that, it’s maybe hard to understand. It’s hard to even express. You know, death is coming. You know, it’s a reality. You don’t want someone dead, but you do want for their sake and for years for the trauma of this to be over. The suffering to be over. You believe someone is going to heaven and to be with Jesus, you know, that’s infinitely better and describedably better. And in the worst moment, you say, Lord, that’s coming. Why not let it happen now? That’s far better. Why does this suffering need to be prolonged? I don’t understand. And in that, you know, you asked so many times that question that the Lord rarely answers. And that’s why. Yeah, many times I was shouting, why? How long? Oh, Lord. I’m not sure. I do not answer just like the Psalmist said.

JEFF JOHNSON: All right. So faith never wavered, but frustration was there for sure.

DR. WHITNEY: Yeah, that’s a better way of saying it. Yeah, I never wanted to walk away. I never doubted God just question, what I don’t understand why this has to go on so long. Some people will say, man, you know, year two, maybe three from diagnosis to death. And, you know, I just seem to be so much longer and harder than a lot of people have to go through. And yet, I’ve known people, you know, was 10 years from diagnosis to death. And I had a long time friend. He was one of my first seminary professors. And he was still in his 20s, late 20s at the time. We became friends then and we still are today, you know, 50 years later. He would go to the of Silly and and spoon feed his mother-in-law when she had dementia and every day. And she didn’t even know him. She wasn’t grateful. You know, he just did it solely in the eyes of the Lord alone. And he did that for like four years. And I thought, I cannot do this four years. It’s impossible. And turned out to be seven. Basically. And, you know, it got worse and worse and worse. At the beginning, it wasn’t that hard. It wasn’t as hard as having a spoon feed her without even her recognizing it. It wasn’t close to that. But it was just Lord, how long? Just like David cried out, how long, oh Lord, will I cry and you will not hear?

JEFF JOHNSON: Yeah. One of your, I shouldn’t be so self-effacing. I’m not trying to make this about me, don’t, but I’d be remiss. One of your books about praying the scriptures had a tremendous impact on me as well. And that was a Psalm that I was praying at my mother’s bedside, getting emotional, thinking about it. But it was come quickly, Lord. You know, I mean, that was to cry. It was come quickly. And it wasn’t that just exactly the way you put it and what my mom did. But I didn’t want her to have to suffer like this anymore. And so anyway. Well, thank you for that story. Thank you so much for being so transparent about that, Don. I think that’s something a lot of our listeners can relate to. And it’s gonna bless them a lot. Knowing that you went through that, can I ask you some more about the spiritual disciplines maybe about a courage? In your decades of studying and teaching spiritual disciplines, have you found that people who practice them consistently tend to be more courageous? What’s the connection?

DR. WHITNEY: Yeah, courage would be, specifically one of the parts of the fruit of the spirit, but it is certainly a derivative of those. And yeah, courage is a godly characteristic. It’s a Christ-like characteristic. How do we become more Christ-like or godly? Well, specific answer in 1st Timothy 4, 7 is discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. That’s the theme verse. The book you referenced earlier, spiritual disciplines for the Christian life. That’s a theme verse for that book. And the practical biblical ways we do that is to discipline ourselves, use the biblical spiritual disciplines for the purpose of godliness. So if you practice the biblical disciplines with the right motive, they will promote godliness. Part of godliness or Christ-likeness is courage. So yes, spiritual disciplines practice rightly with the right motives, promote courage.

JEFF JOHNSON: What was the catalyst for you to write that book? Spiritual disciplines for the Christian life. Oh, imagine that was a courageous endeavor.

DR. WHITNEY: Well, writing any book, for most people is a courageous endeavor. Now there’s some people who say, I can’t not write. I have a colleague like that. He’s just, his laptop is open wherever he carries it or everywhere he goes. And he’s able to just write, you know, for 90 seconds, if he’s waiting somewhere for somebody. I can’t do that. It is hard for me for someone like me. And it’s a layered story, how I got to write that book and just compress it as much as I can. I grew up in a home where my dad modeled daily Bible reading. I grew up in a church where you were asked every Sunday on a little offering envelope. Did you read your Bible every day this week? That was just the air we breathe. I knew every person who came to church or at least Sunday school was being asked. Regardless of age or anything else, everyone was being asked, did you read your Bible every day this week? That was just the expectation in our church. And so I began reading pretty early on told, like you know, age four or something. And I, and in the Sunday school literature, they gave us. Inside the back cover was 90 daily Bible readings, you know, one for each day during that quarter. And dad followed that. You know, I was taught to follow that. And so Jeff, I literally have no memory of not reading the Bible every day. I’m not doing that well. So that was just ingrained into my life before I can remember it happening. So it’s not a decision every day. You know, I made that decision, you know, 66 or 67 years ago. And so that’s just a part of my life. Well, so I grew up in a church like that. It was modeled for me in the home. Then when I got to college, I didn’t know, I’d never seen a Christian bookstore before. They weren’t certainly as popular as they later became. This is in the mid 70s. So I went into the first Christian bookstore of my life. And the first Christian book I bought and read was one on prayer. And then just over time, I began to be very curious about the very spiritual disciplines. I read a book right after, first month after seminary graduation on spiritual disciplines. I didn’t know that term. I knew the practices in that book pretty much, but I never had thought of them in a collectivist kind of way. Never thought of them altogether. And they have a name and they’re called spiritual disciplines. So that was the first time I’d cross that intellectual threshold. And then my first pastorate, the first sermon series I did was on the spiritual disciplines. And then I read a book that same year, my first pastorate, a biography of Dawson Trapman, founder of the Navigators, who was a great model of personal spiritual disciplines. There was some, and went into some legalistic tendencies and not a model for interpersonal spiritual disciplines, but for the personal spiritual disciplines. He was a powerful model in many ways. And so that took my understanding a little deeper. And so the last kind of step was in my, before my PhD, I did a doctorate ministry. And one of the papers I did was a sort of a survey of the spiritual disciplines. And that became the sort of skeletal outline for the book. And I met some people with the Navigators that connected me with Nav Press. We talked through this and they said, yeah, that’s kind of run up our alley. We’d be open to a proposal on that. I wrote the manuscript and they published it. And that’s been a most well-known book. And that opened all the doors for me to teach in seminary and everything else. So that’s a long convoluted story behind that. But in God’s Providence, it goes back to Acha’ala.

JEFF JOHNSON: It’s done, it’s fantastic. It fits with the definition of courage, biblical courage, and that whole obedience thing too. This is the Lord just leading you to it and you’re just continuing to follow through and do the work, which I think people will gain a lot of inspiration from. So thank you for that. Do you have a specific set routine that you go through every day?

DR. WHITNEY: Yes, I know. And I don’t like to, I will a little bit here, but I generally don’t like to talk about it because I don’t want people in the news, I’m in the context of my seminary students. I don’t want them to think of me as the example. This is the way it is done. It has changed over the years. And the basic elements, I mean, the spiritual listens remain the same for everyone, every Christian. And we’re all different. And, but the disciplines themselves are in place. In other words, what meditation looks like for me, meditational scripture is not the way someone else may emphasize it. And in the spiritual listens book, I have like 17 different methods of meditation. I’m trying to write a little book on meditation, which I have about 24, 25 now, methods of meditation. Well, Jeff, one of those, you may say, I wouldn’t do that in 500 years. But the next person I talk to may be, man, this is the way for me to do it. So there’s not one way to meditate on scripture, but we’re all to meditate on scripture. So that makes sense. In terms of time of day, order of things, or it’s going to be a little different for anyone, but the two major ones are going to be the intake of scripture and prayer. But some people may say, well, journaling, yeah, I just, I try, I’m not a journal. Okay, I don’t think the scripture compels us to do that. It is tell us to meditate on scripture. A journal is a great way to help meditate on scripture, help you stay focused, record your thoughts. But some people, no, so they would never do that. But the two most important are going to be the intake of the Word of God and prayer. And within each of those, there’s an almost universal problem. With the intake of scripture, the problem tends to be, we read it and we may read a lot. We may read three chapters, five chapters every day with closer Bible. Most people would say, if pressed, you know, I don’t remember the thing I read. Back I’m not even sure I can tell you where I read. Well, that does very little good. I mean, it does something good. Don’t stop that. And reading is the starting place, for sure. That’s where we start, but for way too many people, that is the ending place. But reading is the exposure to scripture. Meditation is the absorption of scripture. And it’s so the absorption of scripture that we experience God and experience transformation of life. That enables the scriptures to percolate deep into the soil of our soul. And you know, we experience spiritual reality in biblically supported ways. And most people just don’t do that. That’s why they say, I don’t even remember what I read. I can’t remember the last time I had any experience with God through the intake of scripture. So that’s solution that is meditation. You can do that 10 minutes. You know, if you only have 10 minutes, great. Don’t read for 10 minutes. Read for five. Meditate for five. Something like that. It’s better to read less if necessary. And remember something than to read more. And remember nothing. So everyone needs to have bivalentake every day. Reading alone probably is not sufficient meditation. Needs to be in there. The other most important personal spiritualism is prayer. But again, I find there’s an almost universal problem there. People tend to say the same old things about the same old things in prayer. And after a while that becomes boring. And with prayers boring, we tend not to pray. Well, just like the universal problem with the intake of scripture, there’s universal problem in prayer. I think that’s, I just described it. And there’s a simple, permanent biblical solution to both. And it has to be simple. Right? If God expects all of his people all over the world, the meditate on scripture and pray, it’s gotta be simple. Because you think of the great differences in age, IQ, education. But if we’re all to do the very same things, gotta be pretty simple. And in prayer, I think the simple, permanent biblical solutions when you pray, pray the Bible. And by that I mean you turn the words of a passage of scripture into prayer. I find that most simply and easily done the Psalm, that’s where I usually take people to teach them how to do this. So you take a Psalm, Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd. You read that and you pray things like Lord. Thank you that you are my shepherd. You’re a good shepherd. Would you shepherd my family today? Guide them into the ways of God, guard them from the ways of the world, lead them not in the temptation, deliver them from evil. Would you cause them to be your sheep too? In order, would you shepherd me in this big decision that’s before me today, I want to do your will. Shepherd me Lord, in do what that is. I pray for undershepherds at the church. So what the Bible brings to mind, when you read the Lord is my shepherd, that’s what you pray about. And when you can’t think of anything else, you go to the next line, I shall not want. And on and on, you just go through a passage praying about what the Bible brings to mind until you run out of Psalm, or you run out of prayer, run out of time. If you run out of Psalm, okay, go to the next one. If you run out of time, which would be true for most people, you have filled the time with biblical praying and here’s the real insight there. You never again say the same old things, about the same old things. And you didn’t have to try to think up something to be different. You just prayed your way through a passage of the Bible and talked about what came to mind. So you know you’re gonna pray pretty close to biblical ways when you’re praying the Bible. You don’t have to think up things. Your mind doesn’t wander as much. And I just found a simple, permanent biblical solution that is almost universal problem. So back up and go back to where we started. The two most important personal spiritual disciplines are the intake of the Word of God and prayer. And I think we should all make time for at least those two every day. And that was prompted by your question, what do I do in my personal life? Well, I think all of us should include at least those two basic personal spiritual lists.

JEFF JOHNSON: Yeah. And again, the courage naturally comes from that obedience with the Lord that you find through those spiritual disciplines. So there’s the courage, very much a byproduct. Am I reading that correctly?

DR. WHITNEY: Yeah. Exactly. You meditate on scripture and when it’s appropriate for that, you’re going to think about courage. Now, maybe not like that, but you think, okay, I believe God is leading me to share the gospel with this person here. Lord, help me to do that. I want to do that and you struggle with, how am I going to do that? And is am I embarrassed to do that or whatever? Well, that’s dealing with courage, right? And how did that come up? You praying through passage of scripture.

JEFF JOHNSON: But another personal testimony, again, from your writings, this praying through scripture, which is just, I don’t want to use hyperbolic terms like transformational dawn, but that’s exactly what’s happened. I run our listeners know I run a steel company and we got a couple hundred thousand square foot facility and I enjoy going down there and praying over the plant when everybody’s gone. And the first time I prayed to scriptures and the Psalms as your book recommends, I had an epiphany that I was more aligning my will with gods and I was being more authentic in my prayer and it really felt like I was holding somebody’s hand when I was going through those prayers. And it was just a, it was such a warm feeling and I suppose we wouldn’t call any of that magic. We would just call that the will of God and interacting with the scriptures in a real way.

DR. WHITNEY: Yeah, well, back to what I said about it, experiencing God. We taste spiritual reality in biblically appropriate ways through the spiritual discipline. So in you, that’s a way it ought to be, right? If we’re to experience God in regular ways in this world, it’s gonna come through his word and through prayer. And the other means about which he, we engage with God and so you were just in a very biblical way, praying through a passage. Yeah, I hear that kind of story all the time.

JEFF JOHNSON: It was like a real conversation with a real person.

DR. WHITNEY: Right.

JEFF JOHNSON: And yeah, and we were told in first John isn’t that if we, yeah, we, if that we should pray in accordance with his will.

DR. WHITNEY: Jeff, can you have any greater assurance you’re praying the will of God than when you’re praying the word of God?

JEFF JOHNSON: Right.

DR. WHITNEY: That doesn’t mean you can’t take a word from scripture and twist it, make itself, it’s your whatever. But overall, I don’t think there’s any greater assurance you’re praying the will of God than when you’re praying the word of God. So no wonder it’s becoming a real conversation. God is speaking to you through his word. The Bible is God speaking, right? And so you take something God says to you and you speak back to him exactly about what he just said. And that’s what people say it felt like a real conversation with a real person because it is a real person. Yes, the essence of prayer, right? You’re talking with a real person. And in his word, that real person is speaking to you. So and he’s just so simple, six year old who can read can do this.

JEFF JOHNSON: Yes, beautiful. We’re taught in if you’ve gone through any counseling with your wife, you know, pre-marriage counseling or after you’re married, one of the things that you want to do is make sure the person that they’ve been heard and a way to do that is to pair it back to them what they just said to you as evidence that you’ve just heard that. And gosh, it felt like the same thing. You know, I was affirming the scriptures and then I was saying it out in my own mouth, do, and partnering with it. So well, I want to be respectful at time and I could ask you questions all day, Don, but before I get to a couple of the final questions for you, let me delve into the spiritual discipline business just because I have a personal question about this. So your book led me to seven minutes, seven minutes, seven minutes and seven minutes because I had a 30 minute time frame. So I do the Bible intake and the prayer and the meditation and the journaling. And sometimes I do that setting an actual timer, you know, because it helps me, you know, be disciplined, bounded and whatever. And if the Lord’s got wants me to go beyond that, I just go ahead and go beyond that. But it’s been a beautiful seven, seven, seven, seven kind of primer for me most mornings. The one that seems to be the most difficult for me is the meditation. When I sit quietly and I understand a difference between, I’m not sure if I read this in your book, forgive me or someplace else, but the difference between Eastern meditation and Western meditation. Eastern is this emptying out business and Western meditation, the Christian meditation is like the famous sermon by Thomas Chalmers, you know, the explosive power of a new affection. This is putting something in instead in the meditation. What’s the trick to meditation? I, or am I just a hard case? I have a hard time sitting quietly, listening to God.

DR. WHITNEY: Well, I think it’s very common. I mean, we know all the statistics about our short attention span and how it’s getting shorter, you know, it’s just a matter of, you know, seconds is almost the best we can do. So it’s hard then to focus, especially when it’s, we’re focusing on a truth, a, not necessarily a, a flower, that we can, it’s tangible, we can look at it from different perspectives. We’re talking about a verse of scripture and conveying truth. So, and there’s so many distractions and attention to a short time span. There’s, I mean, my phone has been dinging, and you know, while we’re sitting here and a, a, a, a, a, a, was walking by, these windows here and, you know, we have, distracts. I don’t have to, you know, be dead horse or everybody knows about the problem of distractions. So you put all that together. Yeah, it’s harder for us to meditate than any generation ever in the history of the world. But we, we have to learn to adapt to that because we’re still to meditate on scripture. That’s why I have, you know, 17 different methods of meditation in, in my spiritual disciplines book. And I tell you one of the great things about praying to Bible again is that is a method of meditation on scripture. So when you read the Lord is my shepherd and you think, how can I pray that? Lord, thank you that you are my shepherd and you pray several things about that. You’re, you’re soaking in that phrase, the Lord is my shepherd. So that is an easy, beautiful way is not only a method of prayer. It’s also a method of meditation. Another one of the very simple ones is to focus on one word at a time. So, you know, when the ones that are frequently used is where Jesus said in John 11, I am the resurrection and the life. So you just sort of squeeze it one word at a time. I am the resurrection and the life Jesus said of himself. So Jesus, Jesus alone is the resurrection and the life. There is no other. It’s only in Jesus, the resurrection and the life. Okay, next time through I am the resurrection and the life. Okay, it’s present tense right now. This moment Jesus is a resurrection and the life. Not just in Bible times right now. I am the resurrection and the life. Again, the one and only, there’s only one resurrection and life. And as Jesus, I am the resurrection and the life. He is the bodily resurrection. He is the spiritual resurrection. Well, anybody can do that. You just focus on one word at a time. It’s a method that helps you focus on the text, a scripture. And yeah, we can talk at length about context and how easy it is to miss the context if you’re getting that granular in the text. But I nevertheless, even people who know a lot about context and interpreting the Bible and so forth, they do that too. They focus on individual words and word studies. So it’s just a simple thing and anyone can do that. Just focus on it one word at a time that helps you stay. More focused, I find that one helpful when I’m sleepy. Our really a distraction gives me something to put my mind on and not let my mind wander.

JEFF JOHNSON: It’s wonderful, wonderful. Okay, as promised, just a couple more questions. Then I’ll thank you so much for your time. This one is a little bit, it’s negatively phrased. I wasn’t sure if I could ask it, but I’m gonna go ahead and do it anyway. I’m gonna be courageous and ask this question. What does cowardice look like in a spiritually mature person? Is it even possible or is it assigned that something in the formation process has been neglected?

DR. WHITNEY: Yeah, it’s possible if you take the passage, especially in pre-proverbs that talk about the fear of man. Well, anyone can commit that sin, even godly Christians that I wanna share the gospel with this person, but I think the Lord is inclining me to share the gospel with this person. But man, I don’t know, it could be embarrassing. It could be maybe it’s not the right time. They all think I’m trying to be Mr. Spiritual and they don’t do what God is prompting them to do. So yeah, that’s cowardice underneath it’s the fear of man. And the same is true about for a leader, a speaker, a preacher to preach, to say something in the message that you’re fearin’ the congregation. It’s a divisive subject or most of their views or different than what you believe the Bible says and so to have the courage to speak it is difficult. And some people chicken out as we used to say, they are cowardly, they don’t say it, even though they’re committed to preaching the Bible. So yeah, it’s whenever we fail to do what God clearly tells us to do, that is cowardice and Christians can send that sin just about it in the other side. Jonah.

JEFF JOHNSON: Yeah? Jonah had some cowardice.

DR. WHITNEY: Yeah, away from Neneva, going the wrong direction.

JEFF JOHNSON: Yeah. CS Lewis called courage, quote, the form of every virtue at its testing point, unquote. Do you agree with that framing and how does that sit with your understanding of the disciplines?

DR. WHITNEY: Well, when he says the word every, you know, I had to stop and think, I mean, I like a lot of that. Right now, I can’t think of an objection to that, but I have to sit with that for a while, but I like it. He may be right.

JEFF JOHNSON: Last two, if you could prescribe one spiritual discipline to the American church right now that would most directly address its courage deficit, what would it be and why?

DR. WHITNEY: Meditational scripture. It is the, I think the most, it’s the spiritualistmen most needed, but even our most devoted daily Bible readers, the people who say I read the Bible every day, I read a lot of it every day. Still, most of them will not meditate on scripture. And it’s through meditation that transformation of life comes. Your life has not changed, but something you don’t think about. And meditation and simplest form is thinking about what the Bible says. And the Bible has the power to change our minds and our lives. It is the living truth. And if we think about it, it will change us. The problem is we don’t, you know, we don’t think about it. So yeah, I think that’s the greatest single devotional need of most Christians, meditational scripture. And if I had the power to change a devotional life of every Christian or the planet, it would be right there in meditational scripture.

JEFF JOHNSON: Like your dad had you do when you were little.

DR. WHITNEY: He didn’t hit me, do it, but yeah, I mean, he modeled it for me. I didn’t, yeah.

JEFF JOHNSON: Wow. Well, you might have just answered the very last question, but I ask it anyway, what would you say to the listener who knows people are listening now and they know that they should do something, the courageous thing, but they simply can’t make themselves do it. Where do they start?

DR. WHITNEY: Well, look, possible answers to that. I would say to most people, they’re probably going to argue I don’t have the time. Well, I mean, there’s no magic bullet. You have to invest some time. But I’ll speak to those that I assume are investing some time in the spiritual disciplines. So let’s say you only have 10 minutes. OK, I get that. You’ve got to invest some time. First is, you know, you’re not going to be changed by the word of God. But you can practice meditation on scripture, praying the Bible in 10 minutes. And it’ll be the kind of 10 minutes I think you’ll find you want to expand voluntarily. So again, maybe it’s just a paragraph. Maybe it’s a chapter that don’t read for 10 minutes, read for five minutes, meditate for five minutes. And that form of meditation may be to go back and pray through something you just read through. Maybe it’s just you’re going to do it with one verse. I’ve seen, I know one woman spent 25 minutes on the first five words of Psalm 23. You know, the Lord is my shepherd, five words, 25 minutes. But you only have 10 minutes. I mean, there’s a will. There’s a way. So if a person really does want to experience God more and they have to use the biblical means, God has given us to experience him. That’s going to take some time. I mean, God is the highest priority. You say, you don’t have time for the highest priority. So but realistically, some days, if you only have 10 minutes, don’t read for 10 minutes, read for five, meditate for five. And put it this way, read my general rule for countering the Lord every day is read big, meditate small. Read a big section of scripture. And by big, I mean a whole chapter, maybe three chapters, not just a verse, hopefully, but you read a big section. But then you come back and meditate on one part of that, like one verse. So we need the context. That’s where the reading comes from. That’s read big. We need to know the narrative of scripture. You need to know the story of the prodigal son, the whole thing rather than just one verse. But after you’ve read the whole story, the prodigal son, come back one verse, perhaps you focus on it. And you can do all that in 10 minutes.

JEFF JOHNSON: Wonderful. Wonderful, wonderful. Dr. Whitney, I could go on forever, but I’m going to leave it there and just thank you so much for your time. I can’t tell you what a pleasure this has been. The Lord has completely and totally transformed and changed my life. And your book helped put my hand in his in the most profound way. And so I’m forever grateful. And on behalf of the listeners, we appreciate everything that you had to share with us today. You’re an amazing teacher, an amazing son, and a man of great courage. Thank you so much for being with us.

DR. WHITNEY: You’re very welcome, Jay.

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