Thought Exercise on Discipline

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Our Problem with Discipline

Author

Keywords

Many of us don’t like this word “discipline.” It makes us feel uncomfortable, even icky. It has negative connotations. We often associate it with punishment or retribution. To discipline is to punish,...

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Patience is a Hard Discipline

Author

Henri J. M. Nouwen

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 8:25, James 5:7-8, Isaiah 40:31, Galatians 5:22, Habakkuk 2:3

Patience is a hard discipline. It is not just waiting until something happens over which we have no control: the arrival of the bus, the end of the rain, the return of a friend, the resolution of a co...

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Sitting in the Light

Author

Charles Swindoll

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A piano sits in a room, gathering dust. It is full of the music of the masters, but in order for such strains to flow from it, fingers must strike the keys… trained fingers, representing endless hours...

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The Lion in the Marble

Author

Henri J. M. Nouwen

Keywords

Scripture

2 Corinthians 3:18, Romans 8:29, Philippians 2:12-13, James 1:22-25, Colossians 3:10, Ephesians 4:22-24, 1 Peter 2:2-3, Hebrews 12:11

There was once a sculptor who worked hard with hammer and chisel on a large block of marble. A little child who was watching him saw nothing more than large and small pieces of stone falling away left...

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Self-Discipline Transforms our Motivations

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

George Garrett, a novelist and amateur boxer wrote about a transformation that often takes place for fighters who stick with the sport. Throughout their journey to boxing excellence, in which they mus...

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Good vs. Bad Discipline

Author

James K. A. Smith

Keywords

Scripture

Hebrews 12:5-11, Proverbs 3:11-12, Psalm 94:12, 1 Timothy 4:7-8, Philippians 3:12-14, Matthew 23:23-24, James 1:22-25, 1 Corinthians 9:24-27

While formally or structurally speaking, there are mechanisms of discipline operative in both the convent and the prison, in both the factory and the monastery, more specifically, these disciplines an...

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The Scottish Discus Thrower

Author

John Eldredge

Keywords

Scripture

James 1:2-4, Romans 5:3-5, Job 23:10, 1 Corinthians 9:25-27, Hebrews 12:11

As a young boy, around the time my heart began to suspect that the world was a fearful place and I was on my own to find my way through it, I read the story of a Scottish discus thrower from the ninet...

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Physical Therapy and Spiritual Practice

Author

Cody Sandahl

Keywords

Scripture

Ephesians 4:22-24, Colossians 3:9-10, Romans 8:13, 1 Timothy 4:7, Hebrews 12:11, 1 Corinthians 9:27

My transition into my 40’s came with the obligatory hip surgery. The only way to stop the cycle of hip pain was to literally carve out some bone. Those parts had to be removed. But recovering my funct...

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The #1 Disciple

Author

John Ortberg

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 6:25-34, Galatians 1:10, Philippians 2:3-4, Matthew 23:1-12, 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12, James 4:1-10, 1 Peter 5:1-11

Harold Kushner wrote about a very bright, driven pre-med student at a very competitive college. While traveling in the East the summer before his junior year, he met a guru who said, “Don’t you see yo...

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Walking the Dog as an Analogy for Adversity

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 50:20, Exodus 14:13-14, Job 23:10, Psalm 37:23-24, Romans 8:28 , 2 Corinthians 12:7-10

In C. S. Lewis’ classic work Mere Christianity , the English apologist compares God’s use of adversity to walking a dog on a leash. When the dog wraps its leash around a pole and tries to move fo...

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Cultivating the Garden of Your Mind

Author

Robert A. Emmons

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In Thanks! I wrote that legendary investor and philanthropist Sir John Templeton had posed the question, “How can we get six billion people around the world to practice gratitude?” Not long after Sir ...

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Make Your Bed Every Day

Author

William H. McRaven

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Every morning in basic SEAL training, my instructors, who at the time were all Vietnam veterans, would show up in my barracks room and the first thing they would inspect was your bed. If you did it ri...

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The Clean Slate Phenomena

Author

Chip and Dan Heath

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Take the prevalence of New Year’s resolutions. The Wharton professor Katherine Milkman said she found it striking that “at the start of a new year, we feel like we have a clean slate. It’s the ‘fresh ...

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The Topography of Discipline

Author

David Brooks

Keywords

Wilderness

In the wilderness, life is stripped of distractions. It is quiet. The topography demands discipline, simplicity, and fierce attention. Solitude in the wilderness makes irrelevant all the people-pleasi...

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The Discipline of Not Having the Last Word

Author

John Ortberg

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 5:9, Colossians 4:6, Proverbs 17:27, Ecclesiastes 3:7, 1 Peter 3:15, Philippians 2:3

In his book, Soul Keeping, pastor John Ortberg describes his mentorship by Dallas Willard early in his ministry. The following vignette occurred while Willard was teaching a philosphy course at the Un...

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The Most Radical Discipline

Author

Dallas Willard

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 26:38-42

Solitude is the most radical of the disciplines for life in the spirit. In penal institutions, solitary confinement is used to break the strongest of wills. It is capable of this because it excludes i...

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Disciplining Daily Deeds

Author

Kyle David Bennett

Keywords

Scripture

James 3:13, Hebrews 12:11, Proverbs 4:23, Philippians 4:8-9, Colossians 3:17, Romans 12:1-2, 1 Timothy 4:7-8

We can learn a thing or two about discipleship and the discipline required of a disciple from our fourth-century monastic brothers and sisters. Like them, we do basic, ordinary activities every day. W...

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A Repeated Bodily Practice

Author

J. P. Moreland

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Christian spiritual discipline is a repeated bodily practice, done over and over again in dependence on the Holy Spirit and under the direction of Jesus and other wise teachers in his Way, to enable o...

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The Discipline of Dependence

Author

John R. W. Stott

Keywords

Jesus

Scripture

Galatians 6:2

I turn to John Wyatt [professor of ethics and perinatology at University College Hospital in London] for an eloquent expression of the priority of dependence: “God’s design for our life is that we sho...

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Solitude has a Learning Curve

Author

Mike Cosper

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In his excellent book, Recapturing the Wonder: Transcendent Faith in a Disenchanted World , Mike Cosper explains the value in persevering through the difficult realities of practicing solitude. ...

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Your Cell Will Teach You Everything

Author

Thomas Merton

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 46:10, 1 Kings 19:9-18, Matthew 5:5-15, Daniel 3:19-27, Exodus 13:21-22, Mark 1:35-39, Luke 5:16, Matthew 4:1-11, Mark 1:12-13, Genesis 32:24-30, Psalm 62:1, Hosea 2:14, Habakkuk 2:1, 1 Samuel 3:1-10, Isaiah 26:3

A certain brother went to Abbot Moses in Scete, and asked him for a good word. And the Elder said to him: Go, sit in your cell and your cell will teach you everything. An elder said: The monk’s ce...

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A Day Away

Author

Elton Trueblood

Keywords

Retreat

One rare but powerful item of discipline is the requirement that the recruit of the company undertake a personal experience of solitude at least once a month. This is patterned consciously on the expe...

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Hearing Jesus in Silence

Author

Jim Forest

Keywords

Scripture

Mark 1:35, Psalm 46:10, 1 Kings 19:12, Zephaniah 1:7, Psalm 4:4

One of the early saints who emphasized the place of silence in spiritual life was Saint Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, who died a martyr late in the first century. In a letter written shortly before his...

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Fasting Reveals That Which Controls Us

Author

Richard J. Foster

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 4:4, Daniel 10:3, Psalm 69:10, Acts 13:2-3, Joel 2:12, Isaiah 58:6

More than any other Discipline, fasting reveals the things that control us. … We cover up what is inside us with food and other good things, but in fasting these things surface. If pride controls us, ...

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Prayer: When Words Become Superfluous

Author

Carlo Carretto

Keywords

Prayer is like love. Words pour at first. Then we are more silent and can communicate in monosyllables. In difficulties a gesture is enough, a word, or nothing at all—love is enough. Thus the time com...

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A National Day of Quiet

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

The fascination with silence took root early in the life of composer John Cage. In 1928, during a speech contest at Los Angeles High School, he argued for the establishment of a national day of quiet....

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The Importance of Practice in Developing Virtue

Author

Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung

Keywords

Virtues

Very simply, a virtue (or vice) is acquired through practice— repeated activity that increases our proficiency at the activity and repeated activity that increases our proficiency at the activity and ...

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Two Stout Monks

Author

Brennan Manning

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 16:2-8 , Numbers 14:26-30 , Proverbs 17:22, Philippians 2:14-16 , Psalm 106:24-27, James 5:9

In his Rule for monasteries, St. Benedict considered grumbling a serious offense against community life. He wrote, “If a disciple grumbles, not only aloud but in his heart … his action will not ...

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The Practice of Holy Leisure

Author

James Bryan Smith

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 2:2-3, Exodus 20:8-10, 1 Kings 19:11-12 , Matthew 6:25-27, Mark 6:31, Psalm 46:10

Dolce far niente—“the sweetness of doing nothing.” One of the most powerful soul-training exercises I have ever done is a practice called holy leisure. In simple terms, holy leisure is “doing nothi...

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Grace and the Spiritual Disciplines

Author

Dallas Willard

Keywords

What is the relationship between spiritual diciplines and grace? Does participation in the spiritual disciplines mean that we are not resting in God’s grace? Dallas Willard shares the analogy of a bas...

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