You Don't Need More Discipline. You Need More Delight
Wednesday Word - 11.29.2023
“I really just want to please God. 🥲”
That was the beginning of a text that I sent to a friend, explaining that I wish I was more disciplined in certain areas of my life. For years, my thought has been that if I just became more disciplined, then *insert struggle here* would no longer be as difficult for me. So I tried to set boundaries, I made the lists, downloaded the habit tracking apps, and even started reading Atomic Habits. But none of it helped. Eventually, I would find myself struggling with the same issues over and over again. And I thought it was an issue of a lack of discipline, or worse, pure laziness.
The night that I sent that text, I also prayed and asked the Lord to give me more discipline. His response caught me more than a little off-guard.
He said, “You don’t need more discipline. You need more delight. Discipline won’t fix your faulty heart posture.”
Ouch. That stung a little bit. But He was right (of course).
The problem wasn’t my lack of discipline. The real problem was my lack of delight in God and His word. Obedience will always be hard when you see God’s commandments as burdensome, heavy, or not worth it.
“How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Your word. With my whole heart I have sought You; Oh let me not wander from Your commandments! Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You.” - Psalms 119:9-11 NKJV
God reminded me of one of my favorite passages of scripture: Psalm 1. It says that blessed (happy, prosperous) is not the one who follows advice from ungodly people or stands in the path of sinners, but it’s the person who delights in the law of the Lord and meditates on it day and night.
So what does it mean to delight?
The Hebrew word for delight in this scripture means “to take pleasure in or desire, to consider a thing valuable.”
Discipline is rooted in work. Delight is rooted in desire.
When I asked God for discipline, what I was really asking for was the ability to work in my own power to fall in line with His law.
What we really need is delight. When I delight myself in God, my will falls in line with His. My ways fall in line with His. My desires fall in line with His.
So I don’t have to work harder to follow His commandments. Instead, it becomes easier as I begin to love what He loves and hate what He hates. My appetite changes from the things of this world to the purity of things above.
Now, here’s the real cheat code:
Philippians 2:13 tells us that it is God HIMSELF that does the work - helping us to do what pleases Him and giving us the power to do it.
Don’t believe me? Read it yourself.
For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
- Philippians 2:13
The Message Version puts it like this: Be energetic in your life of salvation, reverent and sensitive before God. That energy is God’s energy, an energy deep within you, God himself willing and working at what will give him the most pleasure.
Allow God to do the work in you. Lean into the Holy Spirit’s conviction instead of turning away from it. The more that you find joy and pleasure in the will of God, knowing that He has good and perfect plans for you, the easier it will become to walk in obedience.
May your desire for things above bloom like never before. I love you. God loves you more. 🤍