Northwest Yearly Meeting of Friends (Quakers)

We asked Doug Wedin, pastor, and Carole Spencer, director of the Friends Center at George Fox Evangelical Seminary, to provide short essays on “disciplining the mind and body as servants of the Lord,” Query 18.

by Doug Wedin, pictured here with his wife Debby. Doug and Debby provide leadership at Valley Friends meeting in Mt. Vernon, Washington. Organic farming and foster childcare are aspects of their ministry.






“No one stops to think…”  God commented through Isaiah. (44:9-20 NIV)

What’s he mean? Well, it seems we have trouble connecting the dots of belief and practice. Apparently, we don’t understand implications very well, like how instinct and impulse regularly shape our worship. He wants us to personally examine ourselves, raid our religiosity and confront our character. And, that is not easily done.

Why don’t we stop to think? The typical answer is we’re too busy, though we’re never too busy to dwell on what worries us. We’re chronically distracted by our old nature as it bullies us into concentrating on gnats, and so, we swallow camels. Honest evaluation always threatens the status quo and tends to reveal our posturing. Critique takes painful effort. Interestingly, our old nature doesn’t care what we believe as long as we act with self-interest. It allows us to pursue faith, as long as our faith is predominately sensual and sensational. So, confronting our character becomes as rare as repentance.

Where do we start? Provoke yourself with questions. Ask our Father for insight, he loves questions. (But remember, he doesn’t like being questioned, make sure you know the difference). Hold loosely to any personal agenda or investment that’s already been made. Read what he says, ask what he means and seek how he wants it practiced. Refine your practice. Put your mind on things above, adopt the perspective of Jesus Christ. Present him with a reasonable service and think on what is good, right and true; all an excellent start.

What if we don’t stop to think? Then everyone suffers. Platitudes, shop talk, the mindless acceptance of tradition and the parroting of carelessly memorized idioms aren’t helpful at all. Allow the Holy Spirit to sweep these clean. Disciplining our minds, at whatever the cost, saves us and those who listen.

by Carole Spencer, director of the Friends Center at George Fox Evangelical Seminary and member at Reedwood Friends Church in Portland.






Some years ago, somewhere in my vast reading I came across the phrase “study as devotion.” Those three simple words suddenly, most mysteriously, set in motion a spiritual seismic shift, opening my eyes to a new way of relating to God, or more precisely, to a way I had been relating to God without realizing it. This may seem an odd over-reaction, but here is the context: From the time I began school I intensely enjoyed study, reading and analyzing new things. By high school I developed somewhat esoteric interests and began reading philosophy and even a little theology (though I would never reveal such arcane interests to my friends!) Yet I considered my mind “undisciplined” and “unspiritual” because my intellectual pursuits were so varied and unconventional, including books that I knew my church would consider “heretical.” Surprisingly, I had never thought of study as devotion, even as a seminary student, when my studies became more disciplined, highly focused, structured, and “orthodox”!

Because reading, reflecting, analyzing, and abstract thinking came so naturally to me, I had always considered my seeking after knowledge a “selfish” pursuit, akin to Eve’s desiring the “fruit of the tree of knowledge.” I seriously wondered if in the end it served any useful or practical purpose at all. In fact I began to think my obsession with study had become a barrier to knowing God. And while that could have been one possible outcome, God used it in another way, as a channel to communion. Study, of the most obsessive, structured, and intense kind—that of writing a PhD dissertation– became an essential path in my journey to knowing and serving God. As I wrote in the preface to the book that emerged from my doctoral work: “As my research deepened, my faith deepened.” The academic discipline of writing a doctoral dissertation became a journey of spiritual discovery for me. An unlikely outcome, perhaps, for most doctoral students, even those working in theology and Biblical studies. And it is not the path that many people would choose. But God comes to us in the way that we need God to come, by meeting us where we are. Choosing the way and being met become one. Disciplining the mind and body to serve as instruments of the Lord can be summed up in the sentence, “I am what I do,” a quote from the master of study as devotion, C.S. Lewis in Surprised by Joy. When can we say “we are what we do”? When our will becomes God’s will, head unites with heart, and being becomes doing. When, as Jesus says, we see through “a single eye,” then our minds and bodies become instruments of the Lord as our God-given passion becomes our devotion.