January 8, 2014

I'm not so sure that I agree with Dungy's selection of verse (Titus 2:6) and title regarding living wisely, but his message is really about self-control and discipline.  And I agree with his implication that this is an extremely important concept for young men.  Wisdom is even more important in my opinion, but that is another subject.

I believe that self-discipline is more important in today's world than at any other time in the last 100 years.  I say this only because so many things are so readily available at the movement of a finger on a smart phone that it takes a much more focused work of self-discipline to keep away from them.  Also, the work of life is so much easier than it was in the past, less effort is expected or anticipated.  Many times these days, if a worker just shows up for work every day and does a moderate effort they are better than half the work force.  Forget eagerness or a drive to excel in the job, but can they show up.  We've gotten so used to bad service that when we actually run across a worker doing an excellent job providing good service we hardly know how to act, they become a spectacle to watch and enjoy.  With such little expectations, it will require self-discipline for our young men to know and motivate themselves to be more.

Dungy says, "As far as I am concerned, that's really one of the keys to life, to discipline ourselves to do what we need to do so that at a later time we can do what we want to do."  I agree with this statement and my life experiences back it up as well.  This is also one of the reasons I like sports so much as a teacher in this area.  If you discipline yourself to not just attend practice, but to practice as hard as you can, to do extra practice before and/or after the official practice, to work out physically more than is required, then at a later time in the game or race you will have the chance to do what you want to do because you'll run, jump, push, shoot, or catch better than those who didn't.  And it is the discipline to work hard in the practice that lets it happen.

In my own life, it has been the discipline of long, long hours as a new engineer, staying at work when everyone else went home and learning as fast as possible, then doing more work than the other older engineers that let me be able to do the bigger better projects over the older engineers in short time.  It has been a life of not buying big houses or new cars early in life and even selling our cars when necessary, not living on credit cards, not keeping up with every else, that allowed us to pay everything off and now be able to do a lot of what we want to do. 

1 Corinthians 7:5,7 discusses how important self control is in not being tempted by Satan.  Galatians 5:23 lists it as a fruit of the Spirit.  Timothy, Titus, and 2 Peter lists it as a characteristic of a Godly person and the lack of it as a characteristic of the ungodly.  Therefore, it is something that the Spirit of God encourages and is something we should exercise in ourselves and encourage in others.  God Himself illustrates the most self-control by not destroying man, but loving him instead.

Self-discipline is definitely a key to life, but that discipline needs to be checked and it is important to have an accountability partner to check it.  No one is strong enough by themselves to stay completely focused at all times.