“My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and truth.” 1 John 3:18

Determined Decision

Discipline. That’s the word that keeps rattling around in my heart.

I learned discipline from a strong-willed mother who had high standards and demanded obedience from her children. Things should be just so. And if they were not, you are responsible to make it right. As a laid-back daughter, I didn’t always appreciate her directions to do it, and do it now. 

Then I actually volunteered for the military and walked into a world that made my mother seem meek and mild, gentle as a spring breeze. It was discipline on steroids.

I saw the results of my mother’s discipline in raising three children who respected their parents, learned integrity, and now walk in faith. I saw the discipline of the military that took a group of complacent young women with no direction or real purpose and turn them into determined, self-reliant women who would take on any task—proud, confident, and willing to do what was required to serve and accomplish any mission.

I read a blog that stated that our brains run on default programming or conscious thinking. If allowed, the brain will seek pleasure, avoid danger, and save energy. That’s the default. Conscious thinking takes energy. Conscious thinking means that sometimes you say no to pleasure. Conscious thinking means that sometimes you do things that scare you.

To me, the difference between default thinking and conscious thinking is discipline. Will I just drift along, complacent and lazy? Will I live by default? Or will I make determined decisions to participate, serve, learn? Will I deny the temporal for the eternal? Will I willingly put in the time and the work to accomplish the purposes of God? Will I reject fear and unleash faith to do the things that scare me? Will I trust God in ways that fulfill my calling?

It takes time. It takes work. It takes intentional thinking. It takes action. It takes discipline. It takes a determined decision.

I love how the apostle John breaks it down in 1 John. Several times he uses the phrase “if we say”—and then follows it up with practical instruction in what that “if we say” looks like. If our faith, our love, and our virtue does not show up in applied, real world actions and attitudes, then John flat-out calls us a liar. It’s not the mental assent, it’s not the words—it’s the disciplined action of doing that evidences the truth of our testimony. I want to be intentional about the things of God this year.

“Father, I am glad You do not leave us where we are, but are continually changing us from glory to glory into the image of Your Son. Let us follow on as You lead us higher up and deeper in. Amen.”