Monasticism is one of the interesting topics I have learned in our church history class. I admire how monks desire to live holy lives by living alone in a certain place, disciplining themselves by praying, fasting, and studying the Scriptures. Their main goals of practicing this kind of religious discipline are: purity of life, ceaseless prayer, life beatitudes, self mastery, imitation of Christ, and awaiting for the eternal life. People who practice this spiritual discipline have good intentions. However, there are disadvantages as well like; they try to isolate themselves away from people and it seems like there is a conflict against obeying what Christ has commanded His followers to do which is to "Go and make disciples of all nations..." (Matthew 28:;19-20).
Because of this lesson, I have evaluated myself on how I am doing with my spiritual discipline and prayer life. Somehow this lesson taught me the full importance of spending time with the Lord except that it has a sort of imbalance of obeying Christ's commission: "reaching out to those people who do not know Christ yet as their personal Lord and Savior in their lives. I have learned the negative and positive side of their practice. The positive is that they can have more time to really know the Scriptures but the negative side is that they tend to run away from the people and it results to not enabling them to be shared about the word of God or the gospel of Christ.
As I look back on what I have experienced in my 1st semester of my fourth year in the seminary, I could feel the negative effect of being alone. I could think a lot of negative thoughts which almost drive me crazy. I experienced isolating myself and withdrawing myself from other people which made the matter worse. God really reminded me that I am created to be a relational being just as how he willed His other children would be. He reminded me and allowed some questions to pop up in my mind and one of those was, "How can I minister to others if I act the way I act; isolating myself and not talking to others?" As I thought once again what is my purpose why I live, I was reminded of the answer which is: God loves me so much and He wants me to share the love I have received from Him to those who have not received it yet.
Christ Himself came to the world with human flesh in order to reach out to human beings. He never isolated Himself and withdrew away from the people. He even drew near to those who were sick, blind, demon possessed, poor, hungry, tax collectors, and sinners. He overflowed His love for the people including us who have become recipients of God's grace. God would want His children to declare to the world how He has loved us and all the people. As children of God, we have no right to be silent about the truth.
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