Yay! Let's celebrate! We've reached the end of this twelve day series on discipline. Sometimes discipline is enjoyable like hitting yourself over the head with a hammer is enjoyable: it feels so good when you stop.

Don't feel bad if you're ready to be done with discipline. Whoever wrote the book of Hebrews understood.

Now, discipline always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

Remember, we're in lent: a season of willingly entering into loss, and of suffering just a little in remembrance of the suffering God took on for us.

Confession is of a piece with guidance. Like prayer and meditation, these two disciplines are cousins. To confess and to seek guidance: both require an admission of need.

We tend to pity needy people. At a Great Big Churchy function a few years ago I met an author promoting his books at a table. He seemed clingy and despearte so I bought a boook out of sympathy for him (it turned out to be a pretty good book, so that was a good thing). Later while showing the book to a friend I said, "I ran into S---- at the bookstore. Needy guy!"

My friend gave me a look that almost spoke out loud. "And you're not?" the look said. I changed the subject.

Worship? A discipline? Sure it is, as anyone who's ever dragged their sorry self out of bed on a Sunday knows.

Seriously though, being or becoming a worshipper is not a trivial undertaking. Over the years I've observed hundreds of people who attend church every week but don't know the first thing about worship. More recently, I've met people who decided to do without traditional forms of church yet are better worshipers for it.

As Bob Dylan sang during his flirtation with Christianity, "you're gonna have to serve somebody." He was right. We center our lives around something, even if we don't know (or don't realize) what that is. Worship is a conscious choice to hold God as that central point of your life.

Let's ease into this one with a brief story. My friend Dave is driving down a tollroad in the midwest where he lives. A guy driving a small truck comes up fast on his left and cuts him off, then salutes Dave with a single rude gesture. I'll let you guess which one. Traffic being what it is, when Dave arrives at the next toll booth, the truck driver with the hyperactive digit is right behind him. So Dave pays the guy's toll. A little further along the same truck comes roaring up alongside Dave. This time the driver lifts two upturned hands and smiles that smile that says "I'm sorry" and "Thank you" all at once.

The Twelve Days of Discipline: Day 8--Service

Yesterday's post discussed submission. That was on purpose because submission is a prerequisite for service.

A few years ago I travelled to Guatemala to build houses with some people from my church. They were good folks, the best. But everyone, myself included, struggled with the urge to correct the backward construction techniques of the people we were serving. Those poor Guatemalan's did everything wrong.

Our problem was that we were trying to practice the discipline of service without practicing submission. It's very difficult to do one without the other. Service requires that I empty myself of willfulness. This takes a while because there's a whole lot of it.

Maybe I made a mistake. I said that fasting was the hardest discipline, but submission may be harder.

I'm about to do something I've so far tried to avoid; I'm going to throw an extended Bible passage at you. I'm doing this because it seems many people don't know this scripture is in there. It's a short passage from Paul's letter to the Christians in a town called Corinth. Let's just say they had some issues. He wrote,

"If you have ordinary cases, then, do you appoint as judges those who have no standing in the church? I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to decide between one believer and another, but a believer goes to court against a believer—and before unbelievers at that? In fact, to have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded? But you yourselves wrong and defraud—and believers at that.

Solitude is my favorite discipline; so much so that I barely think of it as a discipline anymore. I seek aloneness like water moves downhill. Solitude and its flip side, silence, are the natural inclinations of my introverted ol' self.

Yet even for me, solitude requires effort. I must plan for it because life doesn't naturally give me much time for myself. This is not true for everyone, surely, but in order to be alone with God I have to mark a day and defend it. If I don't it will get eaten by other cares and commitments.

Why would I actually crave solitude? My soul needs it. Yours probably does too. Not much, but a little--enough for you to see a much larger reality than the one you sometimes feel stuck in. This is something God wants you to know. Not as a condemnation as in, "You think life is all about you, huh? Well I'll show ya!" Not at all! It is an invitation. An invitation to discover that beyond the muchness and manyness where we live most of our lives, there is a great, big, wide, high, and deep peace. That's where God lives and you're invited to stop by anytime. The only cost is that you come away from everything else for a while.