After the inspiring look at the discipline inherent in the performance of Cirque du Soleil, it’s worth one more blog to bring it back down to where most of us live.

I was rereading 2 Corinthians 3 and noticed again verse 17:

Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

I just thought about my piano playing. I recently played the preludes for The Navigators’ Senior Staff Conference. Freedom. That’s what I have on the piano for a certain genre of music. Freedom to speak. Freedom to write. The Spirit has given me a skillset (see 1 Corinthians 12!), and I have freedom to exercise it. I don’t have that freedom in golf! 

While at the conference I walked 2 miles at a 16:20 pace. Praise the Lord. I have the freedom to do that. At the last conference, back in 2018, I was waiting for my first knee surgery, and I could barely walk. Now I can.

One of Strong’s notes on “freedom” is that “True freedom is to do as we should, not as we please.” But what if what we please is also what we should? As I said, I don’t have that freedom on the golf course, but I do on the piano for some genres. Where does the freedom come from? Discipline! But, “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” And…

God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power, love, and…wait for it…self-discipline. (2 Timothy 1.7) Wow.