Exercising Discipline

I will confess that I have never seen such patience in a young mother. She was clearly being tried. She was tired. She just wanted to pick up the groceries she needed, pay for them and get them and her little guy home.

The young prince was obviously in charge. He climbed out of the cart. Mom put him back in with a quiet admonition not to climb out. He climbed out again, this time taking down a display on his way. Mom put him back in the cart, made a feeble attempt at picking up the cans on the floor, and pushed the cart forward. He leaned dangerously far out of the cart, grabbed a box of cookies and threw them in the back. Mom put them back. He grabbed them again, this time ripping them open, spilling half on the floor and stuffing a handful into his mouth. Mom just looked at him, told him to sit down, and tried to continue on with her shopping. He sat down and stuffed another handful of cookies into his mouth, which was by now bulging like a squirrel with a cheek full of peanuts. I chose a different aisle to go down, unwilling to watch any longer.

My heart went out to this Mom. She thought she was being loving by being patient and not losing her temper. She was wrong.

All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields that peaceful fruit of righteousness. Hebrews 12:11

This mom didn’t realize what a disservice she was doing to her son. She had neglected to discipline him, and now he was an out-of-control monster whom no one wanted to be around. Discipline in anger is wrong, but not disciplining is also wrong.

Sometimes parents don’t discipline out of a sense of guilt, feeling like they are with their children for such a short amount of time and don’t want to spend what little time they have being the mean guy. Or maybe they are just tired and figure if they can ignore bad behavior it will soon be bedtime, and they will get some peace. The reality is that nobody gets peace in this scenario.

The word discipline scares us. It conjures up visions of nuns with rulers or that OCD person who keeps every paperclip in meticulous order on his desk and knows instinctively when his stapler has been moved. In reality, discipline is freedom. It is freedom to act, knowing that we’ve trained our responses to be appropriate. It is freedom to think, knowing we’ve trained our minds to clear and logical. It is freedom to feel, knowing we’ve given even our emotions to the Holy Spirit and so will not be ruled by them.

But have nothing to do with worldly fables and old wives tales. On the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of Godliness. I Timothy 4:7

Without discipline, we are ships without an anchor, blown around by every wind of discord and desire. Just as we discipline our bodies through diet and exercise to be the physical best we can be, we need accept the discipline of God, and to apply discipline to our spiritual selves through prayer, reading of scripture, participation in solitude and service, and through other disciplines that submit our time and energy and passion to God.

Without discipline we are like the young prince in the grocery store. We do what we want when we want to, ignoring the instruction of the Holy Spirit, and then wonder why our lives are a mess. We must discipline ourselves in live in obedience, knowing the Bible so that we know what we are to obey, and training ourselves to listen, so that when the Holy Spirit speaks we can recognize his voice.

If we want to be Godly people, living as his beloved, we must exercise discipline. If we desire the peaceful fruit of righteousness, we need to submit to the discipline of our loving Father.