Discipline and Delight in the Lord

Dear friends,

We’ve unpacked what it means to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness over the past couple of months, and I can’t speak for anyone other than myself, but these truths are day-altering. Which really means they are life-altering, because our life is made up of days.

No one but me will notice this, but this post is late. I’ve started it a few times and let it sit. I’ve done my research and prayed. I read two other books about the subject. At first I thought I didn’t have as much to say about Discipline and Delight as I thought, but when it came to it, I had too much to say.

So much that I’ll keep much of those learnings for another day, but I want to wrap up this series with something tangibly invisible.

With every word I write, I want to encourage my heart and yours toward Christlikeness. By beholding who He is, I want Christ to transform me from one degree of glory to the next (my verse of the year). I want to share this journey and prayer with you. These themes of living in today, grabbing hold of simple obedience, and grounding ourselves upon the gospel are foundations to build upon, but what do we build?

Far too often I think we come to the conclusion that we must, for example, trust the Lord. But what does that mean? What do we do with that? For it is one thing to understand that we must obey the Lord and it is another thing entirely to actually obey him.

Thus, I come to discipline. Discipline puts into practice the ideas. Discipline takes a thought and grounds it in plans and actions. Spiritual disciplines are the bricks that we build on top of those foundations.

I want to encourage both you and me to take hold of today, simple obedience, and the foundation of the gospel and let them spur us to good works. This is the hard part. This is where we must lean into the Spirit. This is where inspiration found on blog posts on your phone won’t take you.

But I’m going there.

Let’s build. Specifically, though, I want us to build disciplines of turning to scripture, prayer, community, and service. These aren’t optional pillars of our house, they are essential to the Kingdom and rooted in His Righteousness. I could write a whole post about each of these pillars (perhaps I am, actually), but you know where you are. You know where you can start.

We’re given today. Today you get to obey the Lord. We don’t have to be there today, wherever there looks like in your brain. You don’t have to own an ESV study Bible and a book of Hebrew maps to start reading the Bible today. You don’t have to have perfect words to start praying today. You don’t have to know every piece of doctrine to start getting involved in the local church. You don’t have to feel perfectly comfortable and equipped to notice others and serve them as they need.

We’re given today with our imperfect thoughts, rocky pasts, hurt churches, and broken world. What are we going to do with today? What step can we take toward obedience today? And then again tomorrow. And the next day.

See what we’re doing? We’re building something.

And it takes real work. It takes real discipline.

But my friends, you need not think that this way is void of great joy. Our discipline is not derived of delight, it fuels it. And our delight is not dulled by discipline, it feeds off of it.

Practices of discipline rooted in the Lord will result in delight. Take Psalm 119 for example. The whole song goes on and on about how the author delights in the Word of the Lord and his commands. The author is disciplined in knowing scripture, praying to the Lord, and encouraging the people, and it is great delight.

What does he do with this delight? He lets it fan the flame for his discipline. He recognizes the blessings of this passion but directs it not towards an elated feeling but back toward discipline in praise and study.

Our discipline is in our delight and our delight in our discipline.

I think it is when I started to figure this out that I wasn’t afraid of the “dry seasons” or the seasons where I was “on fire” for the Lord. When we are delightfully disciplined and disciplined in delight, these two seasons are closer together than we think. And it doesn’t really matter.

A “dry season” won’t dehydrate your faith because your delight isn’t in some supernatural feeling but in who the Lord is. A “fire” season won’t burn you up because your discipline directs that passion toward who the Lord is. Both work together to point us toward Christlikeness. The Lord uses both discipline and delight to build His kingdom and his righteousness in our lives.

So here we are. We’re seeking that which is invisible. We have the help of God’s spirit within us. We are disciplined in delight and we delight in our discipline. None of this makes sense to those who don’t know the gospel, but for those who do, this is life.

Told ya I would give you something tangibly invisible.

“Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well.”

Love,

Hannah