The fact of the matter is discipline equals freedom. The more discipline you have as a human, the more freedom in life you’re going to have. I know this sounds counterintuitive to what we think when it comes to discipline, how we feel restricted when it comes to certain things, but honestly, it’s not. People think when you’re living this disciplined lifestyle, that means you don’t have any freedom, but it’s the exact opposite. I have freedom because I have discipline.
I always thought, and at times still do but less and less you could say, the Christian walk or way was always a restrictive lifestyle to live. Why would God tell us to live according to this way? It doesn’t seem fun when compared to the world and its worldly ways and how people just go about doing things without a care in the world, not concerned about the consequences of what their actions are doing to others and most importantly themselves. But I felt like God spoke to me. God’s way of living isn’t restrictive, it’s quite freeing. He still gives us free will to do whatever, it’s just that God’s way of living means that we aren’t “slaves” unto the world and its ways. That’s liberating if you truly think about it.
If you knew me before I came back to God six months ago you wouldn’t recognize me, I still don’t recognize myself at times. It’s like the Bible says, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:17) We are born again, new people in Christ.
Honestly, I feel like a shell of my old self. It’s good, yet scary at times seeing who I’ve become, but I believe in God’s eyes it’s a better me. I’m not a slave to certain stuff I was before. I was a slave to a whole lot. From countless things such as a multitude of sexual sins, sinful thinking, depression, anxiety, and plain old negativity. The more I did it, the more I felt like a slave to these things. Honestly, I felt I could never overcome some of these things until marriage. In my head (after becoming a slave to certain stuff), I never saw women for the beautiful people God made them to be. In a sense, I saw them as objects for my pleasures, and not as people. But through God, all things are possible. It took self-discipline and me stepping out on faith and believing that living according to God’s ways, not my own, was the right way. But each day it got easier and easier. That’s not to say the journey has been easy or a smooth ride, but through God, it has been do-able. I saw this self-discipline trickle down to other aspects of my life, like working out, my school work, and my spiritual and mental health. I made conscious efforts to do and work on these things all the time. I chose not to be a slave to my old bad habits. That’s not to say I didn’t have doubts, but my renewed thinking and habits now are proof enough of what God has done for me.
Honestly, some of the hardest things about change are not knowing what’s going to happen next. Matthew McConaughey spoke about this in an interview a little bit. He mentioned, “The art of life is making plans and then knowing change is going to come anyway.” In other words, just have faith that everything is going to work out in the end no matter what we go through. He also mentioned, “People often want to know what their efforts will get them before they even try but noted that success in anything is never how it’s imagined.” In simpler words, it’s not a straight shot, there are going to be ups and downs. But in the end, you’ll get there.
