Each year, like many, I review the year that has gone and look ahead to the year to come. I have a journal I call my Eagle Journal, where I try and write something every day. It doesn’t have to be anything particularly profound, sometimes it’s a quote from a TV programme or book, other times it’s a funny quote from someone, or a summary of what has happened that day. I love how it has enabled me to remember things that I otherwise would have forgotten, like the date of our first ever baby scan, or times I laughed uncontrollably with friends. We are often waiting for the next big thing to happen in our lives, to the extent that we miss the significance of the innumerable small things.
The review I then do of the year, looks back at my favourite quotes, moments, books and films. Straight after the review in my journal, I then look to the year ahead. I write about my expectations and goals for the year to come, and I will also give the year a description, based on what I know or sense is coming. This year, 2022, I have called “A Year of Intentional Discipline.” Sounds exhilarating, I know!
Over the last few years I have read, studied, listened to and written a lot about discipleship and within that spiritual disciplines. The practices of old, the spiritual disciplines, have come to the forefront of my thinking. Whether that is because of an increase in books on the subject or because of my increased awareness I’m not sure (although I sense it’s probably a bit of both). As I reflected on these studies towards the end of last year, I recognised my need to be more disciplined, despite any notion of increased discipline I was already experiencing in my life.
Over the last 2 years my discipline to read and to use my spare time for more fruitful activities (including more fruitful rest) has increased, but as I reflected on this increase I recognised that it is not yet enough. I think of discipline and I know this is who I need to be, a more disciplined person. If, however, I am just disciplined in one or two areas of my life, then I am not a disciplined person, I am just a disciplined reader or student or disciplined at whatever activity I am doing well in. To be a disciplined person, on the other hand, means that I need to be disciplined in all aspects of my life, not just a few particular areas.
This is where I find myself heading in 2022. It is not just that I want to be a more disciplined person, I sense a call of God to be so. I believe seeking God’s will for our lives is key when setting any kind of goal. Often when we set goals like New Years resolutions, we think of who we want to be and set our goals accordingly. These goals can often be good goals to learn something new, or be more healthy, but if we completely omit God and his will for our life from the equation, we risk going into the attempts to complete these goals completely reliant on our own ability and will power, instead of with the transforming power of his Spirit. The greatest changes I have seen to my character have been a result of significant and persistent encounters with the presence of God, it would be naive to seek real change without him. Even if we were to achieve our goals based on who we want to be, we risk believing the lie that we didn’t even need God in the first place. Instead of setting goals based on who we want to be, we should set them based on who God made us to be.
So I head into 2022, the year of intentional discipline. What do I mean by intentional? Not only do I need to be more disciplined, I need to purposefully identify the areas that need change and realistically approach them with action and not just good intention. I am a dreamer, I will happily burden the me of tomorrow with a hundred tasks, as tomorrow I will somehow be more driven, and less tired than the me of today. In the past when I have thought of being more disciplined in my spiritual walk, for example, I have hoped that just having that thought would be enough. Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, who could think of home, tap her heels and then be home, I have hoped that my thoughts would somehow translate to change, but good thoughts need strong intentional action in order to see the change that they envisage.
I guess I am slightly afraid that in a year from now my life will look much the same, and this blog will just form a part of my good thoughts and intentions. I think that’s why I’ve chosen to write this down and share it, as a first step into action, and in the hope that it will spur me on to make it a greater reality through further action.
There are of course goals and ideas of how I put this into practice and for what this looks like, and I’m working through how to approach it in small chunks, so that I don’t overburden that me of tomorrow. For now I will share the 4 areas I want to be more disciplined in, the areas I feel represent who I am in both the private and public sphere:
Spiritually Disciplined - I know this is key, for the Bible says everything I do flows from my heart, and I want my heart to be primarily God’s. If this year of intentional discipline is a journey, then the spiritual life is the river that I need to follow.
Family Life - I picture the opposite of discipline as someone who blows with the wind, chops and changes by the circumstances they find themselves in and by the opinion of others. We are pretty good at being intentional with our time with one another and with God in our family, but it can certainly improve. We are often willing to change our plans or over busy ourselves because we don’t want to offend people, or feel we have to prioritise certain relationships, but I know these difficult decisions will be easier with more intentional time together and clearly identified values that we seek to live by in 2022.
Health - Like most, my eating and exercising habits fluctuate, I have a season of doing well, and losing weight but then a period where I put it all back on, and discover the weight from before has made friends with a bit of extra weight and brought it along for the ride. In 2020, when I gave some teaching on Spiritual Disciplines, I encouraged people to establish a rule of life, to make a commitment for what their rhythm with God would and could look like. When I sat down to write mine, I was excited about living out what I had come up with, but then I asked myself the question, ‘what would stop me from doing this?’ And my answer was ‘being tired/having no energy.’ Good eating, exercise, healthy sleep patterns matter. We don’t need to read the health section of the Daily Mail to find this out, we all know it, it’s the living it out that is hard. That requires discipline. That requires intention.
Work — Work follows a routine, there are certain things you do on certain days and certain weeks, and to some extent this makes the discipline of work easier than others. The danger is that the routine can lead to you just going through the motions. I’m thankful I have a job that keeps me on my toes, and that inspires me constantly. The pandemic has changed how many of us work, and Church life is always shifting and changing. With potential changes ahead, I know that I want to invest in the roots of how I work now, so that it can bear the necessary fruit later.
A new year, with new possibilities and new challenges. Opportunities to forge new memories and to tread new paths, and hopefully, for me at least, a year of intentional discipline.
Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash
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