Disciplined Discipline - a podcast by David K Payne

“True freedom is impossible without a mind made free by discipline.” 
― Mortimer J. Adler, 

The biblical writer in Proverb 29:18 says where there is no vision the people perish. One translation state the people cast off restraint. If we are honestly going to pursue an authentic life, we must learn to have a rhythm of consistency or discipline in our lives. Peck in his book “The Road Less Traveled” writes a lot about discipline and states that undisciplined discipline is meaningless. The point Peck is making is that to find our true path we must be disciplined, but that discipline cannot easily distracted or undisciplined. Though we stay flexible, understand that time, chance and circumstances will change our direction from time to time, but we still must maintain a focused determination about our lives.

There will consistently be people who challenge your decisions, actions, and responses regarding every aspect of your lives. Unless you have some discipline about your path, you will easily be deterred from the intentions that are in your heart. In the last blog, I encouraged you to open your heart and hear the voice inside speaking direction regarding next steps in your life and follow that voice. The battle begins when your decisions disappoint others. Though I am not advocating for an attitude just desires to provoke others into controversy, I am supporting that you find the self-discipline not to allow others to cause you to live in a state of confusion consistently. Someone or something will set the course of your life, and you must begin to consider are you going to continue to allow those things or people to be outside influences or internal. I am an advocate of exposing yourself to outside counsel, but the final decision must be one that you alone make and should be guided by the peace the choices bring you internally.

Reconsider the statement at the end of the last blog. You living an authentic life may disappoint others, but it will never be disappointing to you. Contemplate how much of your life you have lived under because of the influence of outside influences and reflect on the results it produced in your life. Isn’t it time you give yourself permission to walk out your life in a different manner and follow the path your heart is dictating.

For those committed to living out the dictates of the scriptures, I challenge you also to consider how you have walked out that decision in the past. Typically in Christianity, we are taught not to trust what we think, but to listen to others in positions of spiritual authority. The glaring problem with this mentality is that those in positions of spiritual authority have misrepresented their status as somehow less susceptible to the whims and desires of the flesh. So in giving others that authority in our lives, we inadvertently give away the central promise of the New Covenant that declares we have no need of a man teaching us what is truth, but rather the Holy Spirit will guide each person to know the Lord and lead each individual to see the truth for their lives.

Be disciplined in your personal commitment to pursuing an authentic life and refuse to allow others to dissuade you from the decisions you feel compelled internally to committed to.

Just Be

David

Further episodes of "the DKP Word"

Further podcasts by David K Payne

Website of David K Payne