Mid-days With Lauree

I may be the only one, but I've always wondered in my spiritual journey what the point is of all these spiritual disciplines we have to practice. Someone told me a story that gave me a lot of clarity. It's about a student and a teacher.One day, the student asks "Teacher, how can I grow spiritually? What are the things I can do to make that happen?"The teacher responds, "You have about as much control of that as you do in making the sun rise in the morning."The student looks at the teacher confused and asked, "Well if that's the case, then what's the point?"The teacher wisely replied, "The reason you do those disciplines is to make sure you're not asleep when the sun begins to rise." That's the moment it all clicked.Disciplines aren't about me earning points with God and getting some good grade, it's so I have more of an awareness of who he is. If we spend time with those who we love, we grow in our fondness and awareness of them. The same thing goes for God. The more time we spend with Him in prayer and devot