Discipline Your Desires
The Gap in our Holiness
I grew up in a home where selfishness and bad choices caused individual and familial pain.
One parent taught me, “Life is hard, it’s harder if you’re stupid.”
Another parent taught me, “If life deals you a bad set of cards, you can still play them well; or else you can play them so badly that nobody in their right mind would ever play anything with you.”
I’ve learned that short-term pleasure can lead to long-term pain.
I’ve learned that short-term denial can lead to long-term gain.
For me, all of life, whether personal, professional, moral, financial, or spiritual, is all about discipline.
Do what needs to be done, because people are counting on you.
More generally, do what you have to do before you do what you want to do. (Known in our house as “Mikey’s Maxim).
Discipline is one of the single most important attributes in a man, woman, employee, leader, pastor, Christian, boss, soldier, sailor, or candle-stick maker.
Discipline is how we negotiate our competing desires. And I can tell you that if you do not master your desires, you will be enslaved to them!
Discipline is all about putting your desires in the right order.
Discipline means rejecting unhealthy things you might desire, from over-eating, to porn, to lashing out in violent anger, and even to over-working.
Discipline means no Netflix until the dishes are done and your lunch is ready for tomorrow.
Discipline means I will read my Bible before I fall asleep.
Discipline means play-date with the kids before X-Box with my friends.
Discipline means you understand that it’s easier to sin the second time so I won’t do it the first time.
Discipline means habits of holiness, dedication to others, safety precautions for others, routine, and productivity.
I don’t mean being a disciplinarian. Smashing a kid’s phone cause he didn’t do his homework before dinner. Remember, nobody is perfect, we all need to take a break, indulge a bit, and chill from the stress and tension of our lives.
But discipline is what determines whether you’ll be a success in anything and whether you can be reliable and trusted by the people who depend upon you.
That’s why I hate slogans like “Be true to yourself,” which is a recipe for self-centred narcissism. Or else, “You do you,” is the retort of someone found doing the wrong thing and knows it.
It is only recently that I’ve come across a book on this topic, A.J. Swoboda, The Gift of Thorns: Jesus, the Flesh, and the War for our Wants (Zondervan, 2024). The blurb says:
Today's follower of Jesus exists at a moment in history when our desires, longings, and wants are being weaponized against us by cultural, spiritual, and relational forces. "Follow your heart" and "You do you" has become our moment's mantras. The result, for too many, is feeling torn asunder by the raging desires within. What do we do with our desire? What about our unwanted desires? And how do we cultivate desires which bring life and freedom and lead to Christ? The Gift of Thorns, by A. J. Swoboda, addresses these questions and more.
The path forward is anything but easy. It is assumed by too many in the Christian community that desire is in and of itself bad or dangerous and must be crucified for simply existing. Desire is demonic for some. But, for many others--particularly in the secular West--desire must be followed through and through. This side deifies desire. But these two options sidestep the joy in the great challenge of finding God in our desire. There exists an ancient and sacred way that is forged around the life, wisdom, and power of Jesus and his Spirit. In short, what makes a follower of Christ is not whether or not we have desires. Rather, it is what we do with the desires we have.
Near the end of the story of humanity's rebellion, the theme of "thorns" is introduced. As readers will discover, the thematic repetition of "thorns" pops up over and over throughout the Bible. What are the thorns for? They will be, in the words of God, "for you" (Gen. 3:18). The premise of this book is that a world where we do not get all that we want is, well, the greatest gift ever.
I like this book because the struggle of “adulting” and “holiness” is a constant battle to control our desires rather than to be controlled by them.
Anyway, that’s what I’m reading now, and I’m very much enjoying it!
Thanks for this Michael, I just read it too. Great meditation on the subject of desire in a time when so much confusion reigns around it. It helped me a lot. Thanks for sharing your story around discipline. We all wonder how you get so much done:) Also re-reading Dallas Willard’s “The Spirit of the Disciplines” another good work on this subject that should be dusted off again.
Discipline was a huge struggle for me, especially in my teens and early 20’s. Much of my success was mostly me coasting, riding on my natural talents. Until my late 20’s where things seem to just fall apart. The Lord’s been good to me. Ordering and reordering my desires so that the things that competed with his will fell into distant second. In still learning discipline nad the lessons are daily.