Part I: Self-Discipline & My Story

     There’s something I’ve always admired about competitive athletes, professional instrumentalists and martial artists. I played an instrument for many years and know that the final concert is the fruition of dozens of hours in practice. The Olympic sprinters and gymnasts have the world’s attention for one or two minutes, but they practiced for years.

     When I was in high school I had a parent of a friend say, “those were my glory days” and I was a little bewildered because I was drowning in homework, sports schedules, music practice, church outings, group projects, in addition to trying to spend time with family and nurture friendships that I still have today. I thought, “What is this guy thinking? I don’t even have a minute to breath!”

      There were long papers due that required a lot of research, I had to memorize instrumental pieces, fix my collapsing clay pieces, go to several hour long sport practices, stay after with teachers to answer lingering questions, find my way around the college campus where I was taking classes my last two years of high school and like I said, still spend time with my family to get through all of the psychological, emotional changes that happen in the pressure cooker of high school.

    Flash forward several years and I’m in college.  Two things I noticed. The first thing I realized my freshmen year was, “Ah! The freedom!”. No weekly due dates, no practice, no accountability that I show up to class….no discipline. It always took me about a month into the semester to get a schedule going for myself. Even still I struggled to feel as productive as I was in high school.

       The second thing was that my spiritual life was slowly declining as the discipline in the other areas of my life dwindled. High school went something like this: Wake up, spend time in prayer and the Word, gym/run, breakfast, school 7:30-2:00, sports practice 2:15-5:15, dinner, walk, homework, read  & catch up with my parents. College went something like this: wake up, get coffee and try to read the Bible, get distracted mentally by everything I need to do that day, make food for the whole day on the road, go to class, get a coffee/space out and think of all the things I need to do, go to another class, eat dinner, try to study but was too tired so went home “to study” but end up socializing with my parents for “too long”.

      Not having a set schedule left me feeling like I should “always be doing something else”. When I was relaxing, I thought “I should really be studying” and when I was studying I was frustrated at myself for feeling like I dropped the ball.

      I just described to you my freshmen year of high school. The most difficult aspect of that year wasn’t the classes, the adjustment, the exams or my 20 hour work schedule at a café, It was the lingering feeling that “I could have done better”. So that summer I made the noble decision to start training for a marathon. The first step was a half marathon.

      Come my sophomore year I had something in my schedule that couldn’t be moved, my training. Watch how it changed my routine: wake up, walk, pray, cook food, go to class, have lunch, go home and run, come back for class, dinner, study, come home walk the dog, eat dinner, socialize with my parents. About that same time my spiritual discipline started to flourish and a lot of my fears, worries and doubts that had accumulated in time faded into the distance (or I left them in the dust as I was running super fast J ).

      I’ve asked God to help me create a schedule and to show me how I should be spending  my time. So far I have noticed that I rest better, study more efficiently and have been more faithful to my prayer time with Him since I incorporated only one or two new small disciplines. In high school I was accountable to teachers and deadlines, but now I am accountable to myself and to the One granting me the 1,440 minutes every day.

Have you also at one point experienced the joy of being disciplined? Spiritually? Mentally? What are your thoughts about self-discipline being listed as the fruit of the Spirit? (Galatians 5:22) Leave your comments below J