Discipline: Limiting or Empowering

When I hear the word "discipline" my mind immediately pictures a set of rules that start with, "Do not..." or a posted sign that says, "No trespassing". There are many examples around us of discipline limiting what people can do.

I'd like to present the idea of a blow dart gun. It's not that complex; basically it's just a tube that holds the blow dart. You insert the blow dart in one end, put your mouth up to the tube, and blow. The dart fits perfect inside the tube, so that all of the air you blow is focused on pushing that dart forward. No air pressure is lost by going around the dart. As a result, it's amazing how far and how fast the darts can travel!

Supposing you put a blow dart on a table (without a tube) and blow on it as hard as you can. Will it move? A little, but not nearly as much as if it was in the tube.

When you think of this idea, do you consider the tube to have a limiting role or an empowering role? Well, it sort of does both. It limits the directions which the air can flow: only to push on the dart rather than going up or down or to the sides. But as a result, it empowers the dart to fly much further than it can without it.

People can be like this too when we receive discipline. At first, it's no fun to hear what we cannot do. Hopefully, we realize that the emphasis is not on what not to do but on what to do, and that if we spend all our time doing stuff that doesn't matter, we will never accomplish anything truly great.

Looking at the following list of things people are told not to do, consider how a person, like a dart, can really go much further in life if they adhere to that area of discipline:

1. Don't watch movies that are a bad influence.
   
2. Don't gossip about people.
3. Don't waste all your money on things that will get used up immediately.
4. Don't get overcommitted by signing up to do too many things.
5. Don't cheat by copying another person's homework.

The above statements are written in the negative form. When we tell people what they should not do, they tend to feel limited. When we phrase them in the positive form, people tend to feel empowered to make a better choice. For example, spend your money on things that will last, and only tell things about people that they themselves would tell.

I believe that this concept has two implications for everyone. First, when we receive discipline, it's helpful to see it in the proper perspective: that it is usually intended to empower us rather than limit us (although this is not always the case). Having that perspective makes it a lot easier to follow the rules. Second, we should confidently discipline the children in our lives, knowing that focusing them on doing what's right will help them reach their full potential rather than just letting them do and act however they want.

Sometimes it's hard to stay consistent with disciplining children. We get lazy. We choose favorites. We feel like we're not living up to a certain standard, so it's hard for us to expect others to live up to it. But think of the blow dart gun. Its shape is constant; it does not bend, stretch, or shrink. As much as possible, we should strive to be the same.

There's A Nap For That!

Some of the new cell phones have lots of "apps" (applications) that can do pretty much anything you need. Their advertisements go like this: "Need to organize your contacts? There's an app for that. Need to manage your investments? There's an app for that."

In the non-technology world, we have lots of other problems that can seem to stress us out. But it's amazing how much a good night's sleep can make any problem seem far smaller (or our ability to manage it seem much greater). So...

...if it seems like nobody likes you, there's a nap for that!
...if you are getting frustrated at how difficult your job is, there's a nap for that!
...if the weather is miserable, there's a nap for that!

The main point: Getting a good night's sleep can help prevent a lot of problems. It is also a harmless response for many crises because it helps us take a moment to relax before tackling them, and this pause usually helps make a better decision.

Layers of Intentionality

As you've probably guessed by reading my blog, I like to be intentional about whatever I do. I like to start with a goal and do my best to read that goal. But what's better than having a clearly defined goal before starting a project? Having layers of intentionality.

I saw a great example of this yesterday at church. At the beginning of January, the Pastor of Youth and English Ministries had posted a survey on the new church website to see which topics students were most interested in. He had said that on the four Sundays in February he would speak about those four topics. I originally thought that this was a great way to attract the congregation to visit the new church website and to help the congregation get involved and take some ownership in the worship service by suggesting topics or voting for ones that others had suggested.

Although the survey did accomplish these things, he shared some more important goals yesterday. He suspected that the questions that people were most interested in were also ones that their friends may have been asking. The pastor wanted to equip the congregation with some answers to these questions. But more than just communicating content he also wanted to model for the congregation how to properly listen to the questions our friends ask and how to communicate the truth to them (not saying what you think; saying what the Bible says about it), and saying this in a way that they can understand.

Some would say that this is an example of having several goals, but I call it "layers of intentionality" for three main reasons:

1. Because the goals are built on top of each other. Some of them are foundational to others.
   
2. Because he had goals for himself (to communicate God's truth to the congregation) and for the congregation (to do the same with their friends).
   
3. Because he set goals for what to do (communicate content) and how to do it (modeling how the congregation could communicate God's truth to their friends).

Someone pointed out to me once, "Anything worth doing is hard". Sometimes I focus on the "hard" part of that statement, reassuring me that it's normal for worthwhile things to be hard, so I keep on going. But it's also helpful to regularly focus on the "worth doing" concept. If you have one goal for an event that probably makes it worth doing, but if you have several layers of intentionality, it will be very worth doing, and knowing that will help you stay committed to doing it when times get tough.