Disciplining My Quiet Times With Mercy

Today I was praying for discipline because I felt like I wasn't doing all that I could or should be doing for the Lord. God asked me what I wanted discipline for; to do His will, of course. I wanted to make my morning devotions more of a priority and the more I thought about it the more I wondered whether that was really what God wanted me to be disciplined about.

I started to realize that there was a lot of guilt associated with my quiet times in the morning. The days when I didn't pray or read at all were filled with guilt and frustration which inevitably led to selfish actions. It seems that guilt always leads to sin.

The more I read the bible the more I wonder about this guilt that I feel with my devotion to God. If He truly has removed the guilt and sin of us all, if we are really free; if there is truly no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, then what use does this guilt serve? I can't find one. If anything, the condemnation I feel from my lack of discipline is pushing me further and further from God.

I have been encouraging a lot of people to be diligent in their time with the Lord in the best parts of their day, to give to Him the very best and most productive times of their day so that they can know Him. I may not have been clear enough on the matter of grace and mercy that is associated with this.

I am still figuring out what it means to be a person who loves the presence of God. I haven’t gotten all of this figured out yet and I probably won’t for quite some time… if ever. But the way I look at it, the goodness of the relationship is not in the completeness of it, the goodness is in the building of it.

Should we put all of our effort into being perfect and complete? Should we put our efforts into progress and growth? Maybe, rather, we should put down our notions of what the relationship with God should look like and give up. Not giving up on God, but giving up on ourselves. We make assumptions of what our life should look like, where we should be in the world, what we should have, what hope should do for us. We condemn ourselves because we don’t measure up to the standard that we believe God has for us.

Are you condemning yourself for your failures to God? There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ, yet we condemn left and right and straight back at ourselves. We judge ourselves for all the ways that we mess up, the judgement comes from only one place, us.

Now then, what must we do to not drive our lives back into guilt and sin? For myself, I am learning to live in the place where contentment, grace, and mercy meet. It is not about making peace with myself, it is about turning my concern to that which is most important, loving God first and then loving others as I am loved.

Discipline is not being good or doing all of the perfect things, discipline is being a person who extends grace and mercy to all people and, when necessary, ourselves. Live to please God, be content, listen and wait. In all things, love.