Another New Year is in the books . Many people all over the world have set those New Year’s goals, something we have all done at least once with the arrival of a new year. These goals, like trying to reach a new level at work or in relationships or to lose weight, range from a multitude of things. But what do they all have in common? What is the constant theme that all of our goals or lofty aspirations share?
Everything we look for or hope to accomplish all depends on our dedication to it, our discipline.
Discipline isn’t something that is marveled at like success or accomplishments are. Yet, to reach those stages of success or accomplishments, someone needed to discipline themselves to make it there, right? Just like it takes discipline to reach our goals, it takes discipline to endure this Christian journey (Hebrews 12:1 NIV), most importantly to trust God. This is due to life throwing us so many different curve balls, trials, and tribulations swallowing us whole and spewing us out like a bad taste in your mouth. The negative experiences we endure, brokenness we may feel, and distance some may believe is there between them and God will have you questioning if God is good and trustworthy.
I believe one of the hardest things for me since I became a Christian was trusting God, giving Him the wheel, and holding on to faith that He’ll do it or bring something to fruition (Isaiah 7:9 NLT). Honestly, at times it’s still a struggle for me. And I bet it’s the same for some, if not all of you guys as well. I believe one of the factors that make it difficult to trust God are that many of us are so used to trusting in only ourselves, that putting our hope or belief in something other than that can be difficult and scary. For some, their current circumstances may make it seem like it is impossible to trust that God will do it or is capable of doing it. And for others, God may not be moving fast enough or in the way we expected him to move, or according to our own will. My mentor always reminds me that faith in God is trusting Him no matter how you feel or what it looks like (Proverbs 3:5-6). In other words, disciplining ourselves to trust God solely with our present and futures no matter what.
Trusting God is like our New Year’s goals. The world is always offering magical solutions or things that go against what God tells us in hopes of getting what we so desperately desire or to make it come faster in the ways we want them. The world tells us to believe in astrology to know our future, magical serums to lose weight, majestic cards that lead us on making choices among other things, and the most wicked of them all, believing in our very own selves solely (Jeremiah 17:9-10 NLT).
So what can we do? What should we do? Trust God (Jeremiah 17:7-8 NLT). Just like we need to do with our lofty New Year’s aspirations, stick to them, ride them out throughout the New Year even when the going gets tough. We need to “discipline ourselves”. It’s the same mindset we have to enact with God. God may not come when we believe he should, bless us in the way we believe we deserve, or take away whatever thorns that seem to be in our sides. All these things will have a sane person questioning God’s goodness, but scripture reminds us all and contains a multitude of examples of his Goodness (John 3:16). I believe it all comes down to us knowing there’s no magic when it comes to God and trusting Him. Only discipline – reconfirming to ourselves that no matter what, God will bring us to an expected end.
In my experience trusting God has been at times and currently is still hard for me. But when I look back on my life and how far God has brought me, among the other things he’s done so far in my life, I’m reminded that it wasn’t due to me, but God, and the mustard seeds of faith and discipline I had. I guess that has to carry me and you into and through the next trusting moments with God in our lives. “Discipline often means giving up something good to attain what’s best.”
