{"id":2671,"date":"2020-10-30T17:30:00","date_gmt":"2020-10-30T23:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=2671"},"modified":"2020-10-29T20:58:50","modified_gmt":"2020-10-30T02:58:50","slug":"discipline-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=2671","title":{"rendered":"Discipline?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Yesterday, I shared my friend Randy Raysbrook’s “Psalm of Hope:”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Today, I want to meditate on these phrases:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I say, “If I am disciplined, things will get better.” <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lord, you say, “Who told you that?”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m all for discipline: after all, self-control is a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5.22, 23<\/a>), and “God has given us a spirit of power, love, and self-discipline.” (2 Timothy 1.7) But discipline is not all there is. Love precedes it on both lists, and love often mitigates against discipline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, on Monday I talked with one of my mentors about my lack of discipline in the mornings. I like to have my prayer time and exercise early, but often I piddle away the time allotted for prayer reading news, checking email, etc. I need discipline, right? So Tuesday, I shut off the WiFi on my iPad so I wouldn’t be distracted and had a good prayer time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then came Wednesday and Thursday. Wednesday started with a last-second, out-of-my-control change to a project I had already sent to a mailing service on the east coast, two hours ahead of me. No choice but to attack that first thing. Thursday, my son David in Atlanta had to close the pre-school he manages because of widespread weather damage and power outages. So we were on the phone with him and his boys first thing. June reminds me, “People are a good use of time.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So in both cases, the “discipline” I had decided to do in advance had to give way to serving people in real life. Randy’s observation is correct: there are no guarantees that “If I am disciplined, things will get better.” As I’ve observed before, Jesus did not seem to operate on a disciplined schedule. He always had time for interruptions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Jesus approached Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging…Jesus stopped and ordered the man to be brought to him… (Luke 18.35, 40, NIV)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, \u201cZacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.\u201d (Luke 19.5, NIV)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Yesterday, I shared my friend Randy Raysbrook’s “Psalm of Hope:” Today, I want to meditate on these phrases: I say, “If I am disciplined, things will get better.” Lord, you say, “Who told you that?” I’m all for discipline: after all, self-control is a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5.22, 23), and “God has given … Continue reading Discipline?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8X9bo-H5","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2671"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2672,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2671\/revisions\/2672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}