Building Discipline

 I am not a runner. It probably doesn't count if I just "know somebody" who runs. Truth is I know a lot about running if hearing my friends talk about their passion counts for something. What I hear sounds like a lot of hard work and perseverance. Discipline. And what I hear stirs in me a respect for their hard work, their commitment to keep pursuing bigger and harder goals, to keep training for a little longer run, a little bigger race, and a little more stamina.

Do you know why I respect those who run? Because deep down, I know they have what it takes to accomplish an arduous task. I know they set goals and persevere until they achieve them. I know they endure the pain because the end of the race, knowing they reached their goal and did not give up, is worth all the pain of the journey. Sounds like God's plan for life to me. Hebrew 12:1 "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us." NIV

My running friends have taught me the value of training. You don't get up one day and decide to run a 5K; you get up and decide to train for a 5K. You don't complete a marathon when your running experience amounts to an occasional 5K; you train for a half marathon and then for a marathon. AND you don't run in high altitude unless you've trained to run in high altitude.

I appreciate my running friends because they provide a picture of how to develop discipline and build muscle. I may not have the muscles that allow me to run a marathon or even a couple of miles. But I could...  

I may not have the muscles that allow me to walk in integrity and be a faithful wife, friend, mother, sister, and daughter but I could...                                                                                                              How do I build discipline into other areas of my life?

The idea of developing a disciplined life is not new to me but I am looking at the importance of discipline through new eyes as I watch my children grow and develop. I feel an incredible need to teach them the practice of developing discipline. I teach them to discipline themselves in every area of life: how to get enough sleep, how to brush their teeth regularly for two minutes, how to wash their hands when they blow their nose! Am I teaching them only these skills? Or will I teaching them about discipline so they can apply this practice to every area of their life?

When I graduated college, I was blessed to begin working for a small business owner. Over the six years I learned business practice from this employer, I watched the struggle in hiring and managing a small staff of around twenty employees. One of my employers' greatest challenges was the commitment or lack of commitment to quality service that an employee like myself might have. I remember a conversation with my employer where he struggled to determine what made the difference between a person with a work ethic that benefitted the clients and the business and a person who had little commitment to work hard and provide good services. I think one of the factors is discipline. Were the individuals taught to value hard work, keeping promises, using your time well, and other areas of commitment to be disciplined?

There are a lot of areas of life that can benefit from discipline. How your employer views your contribution at work is one small piece of the puzzle. Discipline affects my relationships with friends. Am I keeping my commitment to be at someone's house on time? Am I available to help watch their kids or bring them a meal on short notice? My discipline in my daily tasks provides opportunities for developing relationships after "my chores are done". Am I modeling this for my kids?

One of the areas I think makes the biggest impact on my life is discipline in my relationship with God. How do you develop a relationship with God? How do you develop a relationship with your best friend, your mom, your spouse or significant other? Time and being a good listener are some of the key pieces to my closest relationships. I rarely get to know someone well if I have no time for them or I do all the talking. My life is busy and full of commitments. I'm sure your life is equally full. Have I scheduled time to listen to God and just be with Him? I learn more about God from reading the Bible because the words of the Bible are God's words, written to humanity to tell us who He is. God is saying "Hello, do you want to get to know me? Let me tell you about myself. Would you like to listen?"

A part of how I get to know God more intimately is when I do more than just read the words He wrote to me. I read and think and write about what I learned from God's letters. I keep a journal of what God says about Himself, or about me and how He relates to me. These journal entries are very personal but only beneficial as a way to deepen my level of understanding about what I read in the Bible. I hope that my kids will see this and begin their own habit of sitting and reading the Bible and thinking about what they read. My daughter already loves getting up in the morning to sit on the couch with me while I read to her from the Bible. She also notices every time I let something else push my time with God aside. Which pattern do I want my children to imitate? What do my actions show is my highest priority?

Memorizing God's word is another area that I have seen God bless when I practice discipline. My four year old is learning to memorize Bible verses through song and also just repetition. We practice the phrases one small piece at a time until we build the psalm or other Bible passage into a complete section. We memorized Psalm 23 in a couple of months. We just started memorizing the first verse of Psalm 1, "Oh the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked or stand around with sinners..." Sometimes we laugh at how funny it sounds to keep repeating the same small phrase over and over. "Oh the joys" (echo from 4yr old), etc. In two days, we built the memory pattern for 17 words! Our favorite part of Psalm 23 has been verse 4, "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for YOU are with me. Your rod and your staff comfort and protect me." The reward for our discipline of practicing these words before bed is knowing my daughter can turn to this truth in the middle of the night when she has a bad dream or when she is playing with friends and has to decide whether to be kind or to join in the bullying of another kid. Truth be told, I have nights when fear keeps me awake or I can't stop thinking about choices I have to make to do what is right instead of follow the crowd.

So what does this have to do with running again? What I want to communicate most is that I've learned how hard it is to attack a big goal from the starting line. You can't do it. You can't sign up for the race and assume you have the muscles to finish. You will fall down. Discipline is what I need to keep going until the race is over. Training for the big race is what I need to be able to run well from start to finish. I will still fall down, be exhausted, sweat like crazy, and experience all the highs and lows of completing such an intense race. But I will finish... because I prepared with discipline. This is my ultimate goal. This is how I take small steps to pursue a big goal, one training step at a time. This is what I want to model for my children and teach them: how to build discipline.

Normal begins with what I believe

About this time last year, I saw an article that really captures the struggle I found within my heart as we faced the abrupt end to our time in training. In fact, these questions have surfaced in every transition we have faced during our career in ministry. 

How to Raise Normal Kids

Will my kids be awkward and unfamiliar with "normal" culture? Will they feel resentment when neither this "home" nor that "home" feel like a place they belong? What will I model for them?

My reaction and my perspective about God will show through whatever face I'm trying to put on in front of my kids. What do I truly believe about God, his truth, and his control over the world and my life? Do I believe God is good in the midst of pain, grief, and loss? Do I believe he is in control even when I have no control over my circumstances or decisions that are made for me and my family? Do I believe that God is able to be both just (giving righteous judgment that is deserved) and gracious (giving undeserved pardon)? Do I trust God?

I've spent several years walking through life with people and listening as they process hurts and grief.

Often, I hear the words "I have trust issues".  I think my perception of myself as a "pretty good person" or a Jesus follower fooled me. I have had the perception that I did not have trust issues; how false that perception has been. I have difficulty learning to trust anyone but myself.

The past eight or nine years of my relationship with my husband has really revealed some of my deepest, darkest places of fear and bitterness. Why do those whom you hope to trust most and hold closest to your heart become the source of so much distrust? 

My personal journey of learning trust began in early childhood. There are things I experienced as a child I only recently revealed to my family. My parents never knew what I saw and heard at the age of six. Why did the adults present at this home not see and intervene? 

Next, my parents separated when I was eleven. Their difficult marriage never seemed so painful to me as the act of ending the marriage, and with it, all my security.  I struggled throughout my teen years with bitterness, questions, wondering why a Christian family would end up so broken and divided.

Did my parents cause my issues with trust? Did the other authority figures in my life who abandoned or betrayed me leave behind a wake of resentment towards authority? Have we all experienced being let down by someone we should have been able to trust?

Now I'm the one whose life is under scrutiny. My marriage, my ministry, my parenting lacks the very constant faithfulness I expected of the adults in my life. How do I handle this inconsistency? How do I face the brokenness in my own life and what issues my brokenness can cause in other people's hearts? Will those looking at my life find what they are looking for?

Will I cause "trust issues" in my family's hearts? Probably. 

Do my kids see my life and my choices lining up consistently with what I say I believe or do my actions and reactions reveal there is a disconnect between what my heart truly believes and what my lips say I believe is truth?  

I'm guilty of the disconnect, but I see hope in the fact that God's truth is unchanging and I am being changed by that truth. Every time God reveals a disconnect between what I know to be true and how my reactions portray my belief, I see God giving me an opportunity to accept His grace. I can choose to put aside what lie I was holding onto and replace it with the truth. I pray God will make His faithful and unchanging character visible in my life as I imitate how He has loved me.

This is the process Paul describes in many of his letters to churches: to put off the old self and put on the new self. The church we attended in Camdenton studied the book of Ephesians last year. Potter's House of Camdenton What I love about chapter 4 in Ephesians is the clear explanation of the process every person undergoes when they are transformed from what they believed and who they were to become a new person who has learned and is learning the truth about Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 4:17-24 is a passage that has been extremely helpful to me since I memorized it after college. The entire chapter (Ephesians 4 NLT) focuses on the need these followers of Jesus had (and we also have) to grow in maturity- to change from the broken people we were when we learned about Jesus Christ to become more like Him in how we think and act. Maturity that unites what we believe about Jesus with what our actions reveal is our deeply held habits or old convictions.

I believe this is the root of the issues we all have with trust. 

Broken people will break our trust, and trust takes a long time to rebuild when it has been broken. Time we often are unwilling to give those who have hurt us. 

God gives us time to change; He also is the one at work changing the hearts of those who will surrender control of our lives to Him.  See what Ephesians 4 says? 

Ephesians 4:20-24, 30

20 But that isn’t what you learned about Christ. 21 Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from him, 22 throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. 23 Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. 24 Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy.
30 And do not bring sorrow to God’s Holy Spirit by the way you live. Remember, he has identified you as his own, guaranteeing that you will be saved on the day of redemption.

Another section of the Bible I memorized has encouraged me to accept the grace God is giving me to change one minute, one choice at a time. Philippians 2 verse 13 says,

"13 For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him."

What an incredible promise! God Himself, the Creator of my life, is changing my life like that? Another versions says, God is giving me the will and the effort to do what pleases him.  This is a dual effort. God is changing me as I let the Holy Spirit renew my thoughts and attitudes. I was created to be truly righteous and holy, to look like Jesus Christ when He lived on earth and to imitate how He believed and acted. 

Jesus never caused "trust issues" because He did not choose to break trust with God or the people who knew Him. Don't mistake me: Jesus had plenty of people who were upset with things He did or said. People who hated Him and wanted to kill him (and did). But Jesus was always truthful and trustworthy. He never broke promises; He made promises that people didn't agree with but He was always acting with integrity. Nothing Jesus said or did caused people to be disappointed or have their expectations let down. (People made their own choices to set expectations of Jesus which were based on their own desires- desires that He never encouraged or promised to fulfill, but that's a whole different conversation.)

God has identified me as His own, guaranteeing I will be saved on the day of redemption when Jesus returns to claim me as His own, His loved one. 

So what am I practically doing to join God in changing my life to become one of faithfulness and integrity? What am I doing to become someone my husband, my children, my coworkers, my friends can depend on?

First, I am reading about God and Jesus in the Bible every day so I can picture what a person with faithful character looks like. Second, I printed some verses from Romans 8, 2 Peter 1, and some Psalms to post on my wall in places where I spend a lot of time. One is at the kitchen sink; I do a lot of thinking and pondering life while standing at the kitchen sink..... The other prime location is in my bathroom. Amazing how this has filled my mind with more accurate thoughts about how the Holy Spirit can give me the ability to live in a way that pleases God and demonstrates trustworthiness. Third, I'm compiling a list of the character qualities in God that I want to imitate-character that shows He is worthy of our trust. 

I am realizing it is not the fault of any authority figure in my life that I have "trust issues". 

I am responsible to choose who and when and how I trust. 

I am responsible to choose to trust God for who he is and how he has demonstrated faithful, trustworthy actions toward people since the beginning of time. 

I am responsible to inform my mind and heart about God's character - to read and think about what the Bible says about God's character and what it records about his actions. 

I am responsible to choose to believe what is truth and worthy of trust. 

This is how I worship God.