If you hate discipline, you can neither be a good leader nor a good follower. Where does that leave one then? Lol!

Discipline is the practice of training oneself (or others) to obey rules (or a code of behaviour), to keep order(liness) and even punish to correct disobedience/disorder/disloyalty. While no human born of woman is 100% disciplined, there is a direct correlation between how disciplined one is and how successful they are. Deep, true and lasting success, that is.

There seems to have arisen an undisciplined crop of people, among Christ followers especially, who think God’s grace is a licence for disobedience and disorderliness. What they do not realize is that grace works better for disciplined people; just like those who leverage grace to work hard get miles ahead of the pack, a cut above the rest.

Part of the reason for throwing away discipline, it seems, is the notion that it impedes one’s freedom. The truth, however, is that indisciplined people aren’t free after all. They are slaves to whims and caprices, feelings, trends, social pressure and even the weather! “Only the disciplined are truly free. The undisciplined are slaves to moods, appetites and passions,” said Stephen R. Covey of blessed memory.

This Pauline scripture to his disciples in the old Turkish city of Colossae really caught my attention because in all of scripture, no one is more prolific in his writings and boasts in God’s grace than the lawyer-turned-preacher Paul. Yet he still saw the place of discipline and delighted that the Colossians were disciplined. In fact, to the quite unruly ones in the Greek city of Corinth he once penned, “Let all things be done decently and in order.”

Discipline provides the framework for fruitfulness; it is like the trellis that vines need to climb in order for grapes to fruit and remain. How on earth could one miss the obvious, that ‘discipline’ and ‘disciple’ have the same root. In fact, some, like Henri Nouwen, simply say “The word discipleship and the word discipline are the same word.” Consider discipline as “the effort to create some space in which God can act,” says Nouwen.

“I slept and I dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and I saw that life was duty. I worked–and behold, duty was joy” (Rabindranath Tagore). What is true of a disciplined life in general, as Tagore poignantly puts it, is true of the life of faith in particular. As Julius Coomson and I assert in our vital 2024 book, ‘Disciple Ship,’ “One cannot be a disciple of Jesus without discipline and disciplines” (p. 126). Sow discipline and reap development, dignity and delight.