The Beginning and the End of Discipline

Discipline is something I really admire in others. For the most part, I believe this is because I just plain wish I had more of it myself. I wish I were more disciplined in so many areas of my life…correspondence with friends and family, budgeting, exercise and healthy eating (though I am doing better on those last two).

I’m a starter and a stopper. 

I have great intentions, make great efforts towards a more disciplined life, and then inevitably anticipate failure when I am faced with hurdles I can’t clear. (I am short. Hurdles have always freaked me out a bit. But I digress…) The disappointment of failure often slows down my efforts towards good discipline. Sometimes I allow my disappointment to s top my attempt at discipline all together. And then, ultimately…I start again.

I’m a starter and a stopper.

My spiritual disciplines have not escaped this crazy cycle either. Now, don’t get me wrong, my faith is there. I believe. My heart belongs to the Lord. However, I simply don’t hold on to certain disciplines as I would like to.

I was thinking this week, in light of all this “discipline-talk”, that with every beginning there is an end. And with every end, there is a beginning. That is how seasons work. I was also thinking that any failure I have, need not be the end of the story. Perhaps it is just the end of a season. A new beginning, a fresh start, is just around the corner.

Perhaps in the midst of my starts and stops, my successes and my failures, there is intention. Perhaps there is an intentional cycle going on there, to allow life to mature within my heart and soul. Perhaps that is a little of what he meant when He said he was the Alpha and the Omega….the beginning and the end. He is there when I fall. He is there when I stand up and try again. He is there at the end of things. And He is there at the beginning…as he was at the start of all things.

And if these cycles are intended not to leave me feeling defeated in my failures, but rather to remind me that my soul is slowly, through the seasons, being cultivated to mirror His own, then perhaps there is hope for this “starter and stopper” yet!

Perhaps I should not feel defeated by my failures, but instead, feel the presence of the BEGINNING and the END and know that He is with me through every stumble, every restart, every cycle and every season of this gift of life He gave to me. That is good news.

Alleluia. Amen.

He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life.” – Revelation 21:6