On the Unpopular Word "Discipline"

My niece was here today, and I was helping my dad move machinery, so she rode along. She was standing in front of my dad's seat, leaned forward, and I was so scared she was going to hit her head on the windshield when we hit a rough bump. She was determined, though. "See?" she said, "I'll just hold on really tight." My dad laughed a little and said "If it only it was really that simple." I don't know if he meant not hitting her head on the windshield, or if it was a broader statement about life, but I took it as a statement about life, and I realized something;

It really is as simple as holding on; it's about holding on to Jesus.

Now, I said it was simple, a simple concept to grasp and to understand, but it is not an easy concept; it is not an easy thing to hold on to Jesus. It isn't easy to hold onto anything, really, when you get right down to it. It's not easy to hold on to money, or a job, or your home or your family. In all truthfulness, it's a lot easier to hold onto God than it is to hold onto those earthly things, because God is holding on to us right back, and He will never let us go.

We still wander to other pursuits, though, and though God is calling after us, pursuing us relentlessly, we are like the small child that is only emboldened by the nearness of their father. And so they continue to run away, secure in the knowledge that their father is calling them, that he is nearby, despite the fact that they are not heeding his voice. We are much the same way with Christ.

Holding onto Him, though, it's really a matter of discipline. It's the discipline to read your Bible every day, to pray even when you don't feel like it. It's loving God. Our leaders said something that I found really powerful: "Love isn't something you feel, it's something you do." You love people even when you don't feel love; you do it anyway, you love them anyway. It's not about whether you feel love toward them, it's the act of love that counts. And so it's about loving God, even when you don't really feel love towards Him, even when you doubt and wonder; that's love, and love, my friends, requires discipline.

Discipline isn't a popular word, but it's a necessary one. We are called to be disciplined, and it requires work and effort. Let's be honest: Christianity isn't for lazy people. It's like any relationship--if you want it to be a good one, you have to work at it. It's just a fact of life. I was challenged on this mission to learn discipline; those of you who know me know that I am not a disciplined person at all, but that is what God laid on my heart--I need to love Him enough to sacrifice, time, energy, maybe even money, but most of all to learn self discipline. It's not an easy road, but God promised that we would face trials, but also that He would be there to guide us through. It is not by our strength that we learn discipline, but God's.

Trust God.

Learn discipline.