Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life

J. I. Packer, the prolific evangelical-Anglican author of Knowing God, offers the Foreword to Whitney’s book. Packer notes that he was asked to write the Foreword before even seeing the book but says that its content alone would have made him want to offer one. He urges readers to go through the book not just once or twice, but three times in succession. Noting Richard Foster’s pioneering place in the story of the modern reacquisition of spiritual disciplines, Packer also draws attention to the book’s Puritan-inspired content: “Don Whitney’s spiritual feet are blessedly cemented in the wisdom of the Bible, as spelled out by the Puritan and older evangelical masters” (x). He advises readers that the book will exercise a compelling power in their lives if they let it, and while that power might be convicting and uncomfortable at points, it will necessarily be transformative.

Whitney lays out a case for the importance of spiritual disciplines in the Christian life. He begins with a fictional anecdote about a boy frustrated with how difficult it is to learn the guitar. This boy has an inspirational vision of a beautiful performance by a guitar virtuoso and then later discovers that the vision was of himself, having grown and become a master of the guitar some years later.