Spiritual Movement

3. Moving beyond Structure to Discipline

"If I only had more self-control, I could refrain from eating." "If I only had a better schedule, I wouldn't be late." "If I only had better rules, I wouldn't fail so often." And on and on we go. We assume that if we can put enough control around our lives by these external ways, we can force ourselves to do better. Are these the messages we heard from childhood - that our parents put walls, rules, barriers around us, threatened with punishment and called it discipline?

Far from being effective, such "external controls" only cause frustration. How far from the meaning of discipline in its finest sense these are! The word means "disciple" - one who follows gladly. A disciple is one from whom desire has been evoked in such a positive way that the life styles, the habits, the standards are lived out because of wanting life to be that way, and enjoying living in a positive manner. To move in our life from standards that have been set for us to standards that we find fulfilling from within is to enter into the finest disciplines of living. Amen.

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