Discipline is the willingness to persevere, to be obedient to teachings you have learned; even when you are not quite sure your teaching is up to the position you are in currently.
I took this very dark image while assisting a dear friend in moving his boat. The boat needed a haul out to do a bottom job, the ultimate in routine maintenance, but because of the tides the only time to get the boat out of the slip was before sunrise. Before sunrise. In sailor lingo, that’s called DARK. And being out in a boat, in the dark, is not easy. It requires discipline. Motoring through a tricky passage when nothing but your flashlight illumines the channel markers, requires the efficacy and confidence that you know what you are doing. But I knew my job well, the captain knew his job and we each trusted the other. Discipline.
And as disciples, we are learning the discipline of following Jesus. And it requires faith, confidence, efficacy and the willingness to persevere. We while we follow Jesus into uncharted waters, we will have to trust that our discipline as a disciple will lead us into and through a thin place.
searchingforthinplaces 