Discipline Drudgery

Discipline without direction equals drudgery.

That was one of the main statements in my message on Sunday. It's so true that without vision or direction, disciplines become drudgery.

When I was a kid, my mom tried to get me to learn to play the piano. I remember lessons with my teacher who had really long fingernails that clicked on the keys as she played. The fact was however that I hated those lessons and I hated practicing most of all. For the life of me I couldn't see the benefit in the hard work of practicing the piano. I remember literally laying on the floor under the piano bench refusing to practice. This was because I had no vision.

All of that changed however when I turned 12 years old and started taking guitar lessons. This time I had a vision, direction, and purpose. I wanted to be a rockstar! Therefore I devoted myself to painstaking practice on chords and strumming and such in order to achieve my dream. While that dream never actually became a reality (thank God!) I am grateful for how God has been able to use that skill in my life.

The point is that without a vision disciplines become boring and meaningless. The same can be true of our spiritual lives. If we don't have a vision for what our lives could become, we will not see the purpose in disciplines such as Bible reading, prayer, worship, fellowship and things like that. They will become empty boring routines.

I believe that God wants to give us a vision for Christlikeness. As Christians we are called to be "little Christs". The purpose of spiritual growth is to become more and more like Jesus.

We always imitate what we admire most. You can always tell who or what a person admires most by what they imitate. The more we become fascinated by Jesus, the more we will want to be like him.

When that happens, we will see the spiritual disciplines as a joy and not a nuisance. We will come to see them as a means of transforming us into the image of Christ and not just meaningless rituals.

Just some of my reflections.