Show Notes
Discipline is good, it may not always feel like it but I promise. It’s good for you. God knows this too and will often use it to help you grow as a person.
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] We're going to talk about discipline today, and discipline is one of the most painful topics to talk about, but it actually is the most profitable because it unlocks potential for us to stay focused on what we need. We'll explore what discipline is all about here in the podcast.
[00:00:42] Hey, welcome to Shifts and Ladders. You know, it's Ryan Robinson again. Hey, I wanted to just jump right in. We've been talking about vision. We've been talking about pride. We've been talking about humility.
[00:00:55] And in order for anyone to. To capture any kind of vision, you have to have discipline.
[00:01:03] Discipline is one of the most important things to have, but it's one of the things that you have to stay focused in it. I'm gonna give you a dictionary definition of it, of discipline, and what it means is it's the practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behavior, using punishment to correct disobedience. Okay? Now, if you're old school, you might have got whooped for discipline. You know, Bible says, train up a child in which they and where they should go, and when they're old, they will not depart from it.
[00:01:43] And there's another quote that says, spare the rod, spoil the child. Meaning if you spare discipline, you spoil them. And most of our parents back in the day kind of took that literally and did not spare the rod or the switch or, you know, the belt or whatever.
[00:02:05] Don't want to have anybody have any flashbacks, but it happened. It was what was deemed discipline back then.
[00:02:14] But I think it's really important because discipline doesn't necessarily need to be a physical manifestation in any way in sports. It is because the area of performance is in the body. So they need to train their body in such a way that they will consistently do what they need to do when it comes time to perform.
[00:02:37] You don't see. At least, I don't see LeBron James eating Krispy Kreme donuts before a basketball game. Or I don't see any notable superstar.
[00:02:51] Well, Marshawn lynch, but he's retired now. He would have skittles before a football game, which was bizarre to me. But most of the time, in nine times out of 10 cases, you don't usually see anyone doing something remotely out of bounds when it comes to their nutrition when they're at that professional level. Why? Because their body is what they actually use to perform. So they have to have the discipline necessary to make sure that they can perform and get paid.
[00:03:25] I find that most of us don't like that kind of pain because you really have to decide if you want something bad enough that you will deal with the pain that comes with it.
[00:03:39] If you want it bad enough, you'll deal with the pain. But if you don't want it bad enough, you'll find that the pain will beat you and will let you know that what you said you really wanted isn't really what you want. You prefer the comfort versus the triumph. And I, oh, that, that hurt me. Because it's true. I think we've all found ourselves in seasons and circumstances where we're like, I don't know if I have to go through all of this.
[00:04:11] I don't really know if it's worth all of that. Right. And this is also something important, that God himself actually is the author of discipline.
[00:04:23] Because there are things that God has to keep us focused on in order for us to effectively walk out. What we need to walk out and walk out not just in areas of gifting, but areas of purpose. Because we can do all kinds of things. But we may be here to do these specific tasks.
[00:04:46] If we don't have the discipline, we'll find ourselves crossing over lanes and particularly doing damage to ourselves because we're not doing what we've been purposed here to do. So I want to get right into a couple scriptures here when it comes to discipline, and there's about three. And really what I want to do is we have our human version, which we say is pain in the body, staying focused. But we have to really understand why we're getting disciplined. Okay, this is what the Bible says in Hebrews, chapter 12, verse 11.
[00:05:28] No. Yeah. No. Discipline seems enjoyable at the time, but painful.
[00:05:35] But later on it produces or yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
[00:05:46] Unpleasant, painful, yet profitable.
[00:05:53] So no one's really happy, or should we be happy when we get disciplined? It's the thought that God actually is trying to cut us back, which is part that sucks sometimes, because discipline means we're going to get cut back.
[00:06:12] There's some things that we just can't do. I'm not a singer, and sometimes I. And actually I need to have the discipline to not sing in public.
[00:06:21] There's some things that you need to stay disciplined on, whether it be financially, whether it be relationally, whether it be physically, whether it be physically that we avoid the ice cream and the comfort foods that we go to because we think we deserve it. But we are actually saying we prefer comfort over our goals.
[00:06:48] And God really is thoughtful about this because he really, truly wants us to be all that we've been meant to be. So I want to bring some perspective, actually three things about God's perspective of discipline. Because most of the time, at times when we're going through issues in our life or challenges at work, in our home and our family.
[00:07:21] Woo.
[00:07:23] See, look at that.
[00:07:25] Siri's got something to say about it.
[00:07:29] We usually forget that all of these seasons have a purpose, either to bring something out of us or cut something back in us.
[00:07:41] Particularly maybe something that should not be manifesting the way it needs to be in our lives. So when God disciplines us, it's actually evidence of God's love for us.
[00:07:57] And I'm going to continue, I'm going to speak from Proverbs, chapter 3, verse 11 and 12. It says, do not despise the Lord's instruction, my son, and do not loathe his discipline. For the Lord disciplines those, the ones he loves, just as a father disciplines the Son in whom he delights.
[00:08:20] Now, this is an interesting part because when you're young, you don't necessarily think discipline is a good thing.
[00:08:34] In fact, we usually focus on the pain that we're going through and getting upset with the person who's inflicting the pain on us.
[00:08:45] But, you know, I hate to say this, and again, I have. I have kids now.
[00:08:54] And again it only makes sense in reverse. But only a father or only a mother can give this insight of what a particular outcome could look like if we don't get cut back earlier.
[00:09:09] Think about people. You may not have one, but if you do have someone in your world where they never got punished, they always got what they wanted, and they never got beat up for saying whatever they wanted to say. They never didn't have any discipline. So they live a life without boundaries. And they ended up not necessarily being loved that much. Like they probably just did whatever they wanted to do. Their parents were still busy going out. They just gave them free reign to do whatever they wanted to do. And unfortunately, we have, as parents, the vantage point not only to. I have an idea of what this child's future is based on their skill sets, their giftings and skill sets, giftings and spiritual gifts, if you're in the church, but we also have a way to actually see ourselves in them.
[00:10:13] So if you have, and I'm just going to say this, if you have a little person that talks a lot and they talk in class, you could probably see that they have that attribute that you have.
[00:10:30] So your discipline is helping that child take back the time and reduce the potential trouble that he or she could get in because you actually used to be that little boy, that little girl who got in trouble in class. So you're saving them time. You're saving them the cost of experience.
[00:10:55] You are doing something loving for them. But unfortunately, you have to hurt them in order to heal them.
[00:11:05] That, that, that. We got to put that somewhere.
[00:11:09] You. We have to hurt them in order to heal them. Isn't that crazy? There is a book by Dr. Henry Cloud, and I believe it's called Necessary Endings. And he gives this example of going to the dentist. When we go to the dentist, the dentist actually hurts me.
[00:11:33] Sure, they hurt you if you hadn't been. That's what they do. They are actually there to clean your teeth and they're not doing like just the easy, you know, oh, I hope you're feeling well. No, they're actually going in with water picks and instruments and all kinds of stuff to clean your mouth. And sometimes it hurts and they may get a little piece of gum under there that might be hurting. They might be. That person might. The dental hygienist might be a little rough on the dental floss, you know, I'm saying, like, there could be things that they do and it hurts. It sucks. Even when you leave, you might feel like you have the cleanest mouth in the world, but it hurts so daggone bad.
[00:12:26] But you are clean.
[00:12:29] You are being healed. This is the thing that is what their job is to do.
[00:12:36] Their job is to hurt you in order to prevent any gingivitis or tooth decay or cavities to manifest in there.
[00:12:50] If they don't hurt you, then they can't keep you. Well, now this is the thing. If they told you, hey, go eat all the candy you want, eat all the sweets you want, drink all the pop you want. It's all good. We'll just, we'll see you when you see. We see you. So it could be you can come once a year. You don't even have to come this year at all. And believe it or not, there's some people that actually live like this. They don't believe that what they ingest has some kind of consequence on their body. Okay? So that if the dentist tells you to do that, they're not hurting you.
[00:13:31] In fact, they're doing more harm to you because they not have inflicted any kind of pain on you.
[00:13:39] So candy feels great, it tastes sweet, it's all good. But you have too many nerds or you have a whole bag of sweet tarts or whatever you fill in the blank for whatever your favorite candy is over a period of time, you will find that you will be in more pain because you decided to take the easy route now. You're paying a heavier cost later because you valued convenience over discipline.
[00:14:14] And unfortunately, this is the thing, there's always going to be two sides to every coin or two sides to every experience. I don't think I've ever seen a one sided football, a one sided iPhone, a one sided notebook. Everything has a backside to it. Okay? There's always going to be another side. When there's heads, there's going to be tails.
[00:14:43] It's always going to happen. So.
[00:14:46] And it's actually a principle and I don't want to get into it in this one, but just know there's always going to be two sides to every story all the time.
[00:14:57] So what we decide to do is we could either decide to have our life easy now or, sorry, we have our life easy now and be hard later.
[00:15:13] Think about something. If you didn't save, like there's stories you can go online anywhere now these days that there's people who decided not to save when they were younger. And then when they get older, they have to deal with the compounding pain of their indecision to actually save money for their future so they can't retire.
[00:15:35] They were probably living it up when they were younger, but they didn't have enough vision for the future. So they're now paying a heavier cost when they don't have the energy or the strength to do what they feel that they need to do to live a life well.
[00:15:55] So you can choose that kind of life. You can have a life where you're living it easy and having it hard later. Or if you flip it, you could have it hard now so that you can have it easier later.
[00:16:11] And that is what God's love is when it comes to discipline.
[00:16:16] It is God's love to prevent you from the consequence of a particular behavior thought pattern that could potentially destroy you later on in life. But we have to allow discipline to work itself out. And if we don't allow it to work itself out in us, we will continue to repeat said discipline until we get it right.
[00:16:44] And unfortunately, we are all, we like it being hard, we like tough. Unfortunately, I would say many of us are a glutton for punishment because we somehow think that we somehow have an inability to determine what the signals of pain are telling us.
[00:17:09] I'm gonna let that marinate for a minute. We do not allow the signals of pain to teach us something.
[00:17:19] You break your hand, best believe you go you. There's going to be shooting pain in your hand, right? Think any. If you've broken bones, cut something, whatever, there is a signal in your body that says something's not right, right?
[00:17:38] So that pain instructs you to do something. But the first thing we typically do is we try to protect it.
[00:17:46] We try to protect it, but we also need to find someone who can actually fix it, right?
[00:17:53] So that is what we have to do. Because parts of us may actually be dying, meaning dying in the sense of submitting to God's preferred will. On how we respond to certain things, we talked about humiliating humility and pride.
[00:18:15] If you had an area where you have been prideful and you get humbled in a very unique way where, you know, I probably, I need to sit my behind down.
[00:18:27] Only you. If that situation came up again and you respond differently, it is because you learned the lesson that discipline was supposed to teach you.
[00:18:41] But if you find yourself repeating the same lesson over and over and over again, you're not letting discipline work itself out in you.
[00:18:56] Yeah, I know y'all. This, this is not a fun topic, but it's necessary. It's necessary for you to even stay focused on stuff. I'm gonna say one more thing. I'm gonna say, actually, I'm gonna say a couple things. Discipline is purposeful. We talked about this kind of briefly, even inferred it, but I'm going to make sure we say it. It's purposeful, it has a meaning to it.
[00:19:19] And I again, I said Hebrews chapter 12, verse 10 through 12 really sets the table for this particular scripture. But then at the end of this, the discipline actually requires a response from us. So Hebrews chapter 12 again, going to do it. Verse 9 says, Furthermore, we had natural fathers discipline us and we respected them. Shouldn't we submit even more to the father of spirits in life or in live? Excuse me. So we need to do a better job at responding to circumstances because most people blame the universe, that the universe is doing something to us. No, it might be God. Well, it might just be life, period. Let's just keep. Let's just. Living as a human being by nature is just going to have its own challenges. Okay, so you keep that there. Or it could be that God is trying to get our attention and reveal something to us that we may not be aware of. So we have to be careful not to be angry and not to be in pity. Self pity. I actually go to self pity place. I go to I have me a pity party sometime.
[00:20:35] But we have to be okay with letting discipline work itself out in us.
[00:20:43] We have to be okay with it.
[00:20:48] There's a little longer than I like to, but I want to end with this kind of comment or this story. I would say when I've been doing a lot of cleaning I've been doing and we're going to talk about this minimalism a little bit over the next probably next couple weeks here, but I had gone through an exercise of getting rid of some material things. And honestly it's been very freeing.
[00:21:16] But one of the things I noticed is I used to get a bunch of like the similar kind of back. I keep talking about backpacks, but I used to get a very similar bag repeatedly and honestly is because I did not have a vision for what I really wanted.
[00:21:37] So because you have no vision.
[00:21:40] The Bible says where there is no vision that people cast off restraint, which means they do not have discipline.
[00:21:51] So when you have no vision, you don't know what to say no to. But you say yes to everything.
[00:21:58] But you shouldn't.
[00:22:01] Let me tell you, you end up with like 17 bags, trust me. And I don't have 17, but I have a number. And it always costs you when you're not willing to let something go or at least to be taught by what you're going through. Okay, so, you know, we'll get into probably part two of discipline here, because discipline, while it is necessary, it's not a great topic to talk about, but it is the key to unlocking your best self.
[00:22:33] You have to have vision. You have to dismantle. At least be aware of your pride, embrace humility and activate discipline.
[00:22:43] And it usually works in multiple areas in our life. It is usually in our spiritual life, in our relationships, in our mental lives, in our health.
[00:22:56] Those places usually have the best potential for us to express our discipline, especially if you have a strong and true vision for what you want in those areas. Okay. All right, I'm gonna end it here. Listen, if you haven't yet, subscribe on YouTube, share on Apple Podcasts on Spotify I believe this will bless somebody.
[00:23:18] Hopefully is blessing you. And hopefully through this content you can start making the shift that you need to make the elevation you want to experience in your life. Until next time. We'll catch you in the next one. Peace.
