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Discipline
Water Problem
Driving up from Beersheba, a combined force of British, Australians and New Zealanders were pressing on the rear of the Turkish retreat over arid desert. The attack outdistanced its water carrying camel train. Water bottles were empty. The sun blazed pitilessly out of a sky where the vultures wheeled expectantly. “Our heads ached,” writes Gilbert, “and our eyes became bloodshot and dim in the blinding glare...Our tongues began to swell...Our lips turned a purplish black and burst.” Those who dropped out of the column were never seen again, but the desperate force battled on to Sheria. There were wells at Sheria, and had they been unable to take the place by nightfall, thousands were doomed to die of thirst.
“We fought that day,” writes Gilbert, “as men fight for their lives... We entered Sheria station on the heels of the retreating Turks. The first objects which met our view were the great stone cisterns full of cold, clear, drinking water. In the still night air the sound of water running into the tanks could be distinctly heard, maddening in its nearness; yet not a man murmured when orders were given for the battalions to fall in, two deep, facing the cisterns. He then describes the stern priorities: the wounded, those on guard duty, then company by company.
It took four hours before the last man had his drink of water, and in all that time they had been standing twenty feet from a low stone wall on the other side of which were thousands of gallons of water.
From an account of the British liberation of Palestine by Major V. Gilbert in The Last Crusade, quoted in Christ’s Call To Discipleship, J. M. Boice, Moody, 1986, p. 143.
It’s Not Always Easy
It’s not always easy to smile and be nice,
When we are called to sacrifice.
It’s not always easy to put others first,
Especially when tired and feeling our worst.
It’s not always easy to do the Father’s will.
It wasn’t so easy to climb Calvary’s hill.
But we as His children, should learn to obey;
Not seeking our own but seeking His way.
It’s not always easy to fight the good fight.
But it is always good and it is always right!
- Glenda Fulton Davis
From video, “The Harvest,” by Chuck King
Effects of Poor Parenting
Dr. James Dobson tells one of my favorite stories about the effects of poor parenting choices on the life of a child. The young fellow in this story was a patient of California pediatrician Dr. William Slonecker, and his name was Robert. When Robert was scheduled for a visit to the doctor’s office, the news would spread like wildfire: “Batten down the hatches! Robert is coming!
Nurses steeled themselves in preparation for this ten-year-old undisciplined terror who tore magazines out of their holders, threw trash all over the waiting room, and wreaked havoc throughout the clinic. Each time his mother would simply shake her head and say, “Oh, Robert. Oh, Robert.” If the office staff corrected him in any way, he would bite, kick, and scream his way back to his seat. When his visit with the doctor was over, Robert would come out of the examining room wailing and crying—a practice that always terrified the other children waiting their turn!
During one of his examinations, Dr. Slonecker noticed that Robert had a few cavities, an observation that presented the doctor with a real professional dilemma. He needed to refer Robert to a dentist but hated to inflict him on a good friend or associate. Finally one dentist who had an unusual rapport with children came to mind, so he rather reluctantly made the referral.
Robert saw his trip to the dentist as a new and exciting challenge in an ongoing battle of wills. As he was ushered into the examining room, he announced to the dentist that he had no intention of getting into the chair. “Now, Robert,” the old dentist replied, “I’m not going to force you, but I want you to climb up into the chair.” Robert bowed his little head and screamed his refusal. The dentist patiently explained that Robert must sit in the chair so his teeth could be fixed. Robert refused once again—loudly. As the dentist moved toward him, Robert played what he was certain was the trump card: “If you come over here and try to make me, I’ll take off all my clothes.” Calmly, the wise old dentist said, “Fine, son, you go right ahead.”
Robert removed his shoes and shirt and stood defiantly. The doctor did not back down. Robert continued removing his clothing until he stood there just as naked as the day he was born. “Now Robert,” said the dentist, “you climb on up yourself.” And a naked (and surprised) ten-year-old terror climbed up into the chair and sat motionless as his teeth were filled. No crying. No screaming. No hitting or slapping.
When the dentist was finished, Robert climbed down and asked for his clothes. “No, son,” the good doctor replied, “I’m going to keep your clothes overnight. Tell you mother she can come by tomorrow to pick them up.” So a bested Robert walked out into the waiting room...naked. His mother took him by the hand, led him down the hall, and out into the parking lot to their car.
The next morning Robert’s mother returned to the office for her son’s clothes and asked to speak to the conquering dentist. When he came out she said, “Doctor, I want to thank you for what you did to Robert yesterday. Since he was very young he has threatened us with a host of things if he did not get his way. We never called his bluff. But since you did, he has been a different child!
From Bad Beginnings to Happy Endings, by Ed Young, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publ., 1994), pp. 57-58.
Poll Results
Percentage of adults who strongly agree that “parents today are too lenient and permissive with their children”: 63%
Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, cited in USA Today, 11-27-95
Ephraim Repenting. Jer 31:18-20
My God, till I receive Thy stroke,
How like a beast was I!
So unaccustom’d to the yoke,
So backward to comply.
With grief my just reproach I bear;
Shame fills me at the thought,
How frequent my rebellions were,
What wickedness I wrought.
Thy merciful restraint I scorn’d,
And left the pleasant road;
Yet turn me, and I shall be turn’d;
Thou are the Lord my God.
“Is Ephraim banish’d from my thoughts,
Or vile in my esteem?
No,” saith the Lord, “with all his faults,
I still remember him.
“Is he a dear and pleasant child?
Yes, dear and pleasant still;
Though sin his foolish heart beguiled,
And he withstood my will.
“My sharp rebuke has laid him low
He seeks my face again;
My pity kindles at his woe,
He shall not seek in vain.”
Olney Hymns, by William Cowper, from Cowper’s Poems, Sheldon & Company, New York
Prayer for Patience
Lord, who hast suffer’d all for me,
My peace and pardon to procure,
The lighter cross I bear for Thee,
Help me with patience to endure.
The storm of loud repining hush;
I would in humble silence mourn;
Why should the unburnt, though burning bush,
Be angry as the crackling thorn?
Man should not faint at Thy rebuke,
Like Joshua, falling on his face,
When the cursed thing that Achan took
Brought Israel into just disgrace.
Perhaps some golden wedge suppress’d,
Some secret sin offends my God;
Perhaps that Babylonish vest,
Self-righteousness, provokes the rod.
Ah! were I buffeted all day,
Mock’d, crown’d with thorns, and spit upon,
I yet should have no right to say,
My great distress is mine alone.
Let me not angrily declare
No pain was ever sharp like mine,
Nor murmur at the cross I bear,
But rather weep, remembering Thine.
Olney Hymns, William Cowper, from Cowper’s Poems, Sheldon & Company, New York
Paderewsky
When Polish pianist Ignace Jan Paderewsky played before Queen Victoria, he won her enthusiastic approval. “Mr. Paderewsky,” she exclaimed, “you are a genius.”
Paderewsky shook his head. “Perhaps, Your Majesty, but before that I was a drudge,” he replied, alluding to the number of hours he spent practicing every day.
Today in the Word, August 3, 1993
No Loose Strings
We must face the fact that many today are notoriously careless in their living. This attitude finds its way into the church. We have liberty, we have money, we live in comparative luxury. As a result, discipline practically has disappeared.
What would a violin solo sound like if the strings on the musician’s instrument were all hanging loose, not stretched tight, not “disciplined”?
A.W. Tozer in Men Who Met God
Football
The job of a football coach is to make men do what they don’t want to do, in order to achieve what they’ve always wanted to be.
Tom Landry
Running Shoes
Percentage of American’s who own running shoes but don’t run: 87%
Source: What Counts: The Complete Harper’s Index, edited by Charis Conn
Penny Whistles
When John Henry Jowett was pastor at Newcastle-on-Tyne, England, he began a series of children’s meetings. At the very first meeting, four boys with penny whistles upset the meeting by playing tunes while Jowett was speaking. An usher rounded up the boys and took them to the vestry where they faced Jowett. “Can’t you fellows play tin whistles any better than that?” Jowett asked. “If you can’t, I shall have to get Mrs. Jowett to give you some lessons.”
A few weeks later, the four boys gave a concert with Mrs. Jowett accompanying them on the piano.
The Wycliffe Handbook of Preaching & Preachers, W. Wiersbe, p. 189
The Tragedy of Indiscipline
Coleridge is the supreme example of tragedy of indiscipline. Never did so great a mind produce so little. He left Cambridge University to join the army; he left the army because he could not rub down a horse; he returned to Oxford and left without a degree. He began a paper called “The Watchman” which lived for ten numbers and then died. It has been said of him, “he lost himself in visions of work to be done, that always remained to be done.
Coleridge had every poetic gift but one—the gift of sustained and concentrated effort.” In his head and in his mind he had all kinds of books, as he said, “completed save for transcription.” But the books were never composed outside of Coleridge’s mind, because he would not face the discipline of sitting down to write them out. No one ever reached any eminence, and no one having reached it ever maintained it, without discipline.
Wm. Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, p. 280
Gold Medalist
Lanny Bassham, Olympic gold-medalist in small-bore rifle competition, tells what concentration does for his marksmanship: “Our sport is controlled nonmovement. We are shooting from 50 meters—over half a football field—at a bull’s eye three-quarters the size of a dime. If the angle of error at the point of the barrel is more than .005 of a millimeter (that is five one-thousandths), you drop into the next circle and lose a point.
So we have to learn how to make everything stop. I stop my breathing. I stop my digestion by not eating for 12 hours before the competition. I train by running to keep my pulse around 60, so I have a full second between beats—I have gotten it lower, but found that the stroke-volume increased so much that each beat really jolted me. You do all of this and you have the technical control. But you have to have some years of experience in reading conditions: the wind, the mirage. Then you have the other 80% of the problems—the mind.
Sports Illustrated, August 2, 1976, pp. 31-35, quoted in How to Profit from Bible Reading, I. L. Jensen, Moody Press, p. 80
Careless Living
We must face the fact that many today are notoriously careless in their living. This attitude finds its way into the church. We have liberty, we have money, we live in comparative luxury. As a result, discipline practically ;has disappeared. What would a violin solo sound like if the strings on the musician’s instrument were all hanging loose, not stretched tight, not “disciplined”?
A. S. Tozer in Men Who Met God
Twice as Many
My father would not have been particularly interested in a book about fathering, although he did like to read. One day when he was reading in the living room, my brother and I decided we could play basketball without breaking anything. When I took a shot that redesigned the glass table, my mother came in with a stick and said, “So help me, I’ll bust you in half.” Without lifting his head from his book, my father said, “Why would you want twice as many?” - Bill Cosby
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Quote
No man is fit to command another who cannot command himself. Wm. Penn
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Resource
Who You Are When No One’s Looking, Bill Hybels, IVP, 1987, p. 23
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