The Tribune

By Kevin Ewing

kevinewing@coralwave.com

WHILE many dream of being doctors, lawyers, teachers, of developing a closer walk with God, getting married, having children, earning job promotions and whatever else, the ingredient called discipline is often absent from their equation in achieving their desires.

To be disciplined suggests that you have thoroughly considered the principles, rules and regulations of whatever it is that you’re getting yourself into and at the same time decided that you will subject yourself to these principles rules and regulations to achieve your intended desires.

This, my friend, is the meaning of commitment.

So based on the above understanding, let’s take note of the following scenario. Are you involved with someone that speaks of how committed they are, however, you have observed a worrying lack of discipline in their life? Well, my friend, this is called “putting the carriage before the horse”, meaning, a horse pulls a carriage but it is impossible for a carriage to pull a horse.

Therefore, commitment will always be the end result of the consistent acts of discipline. In other words, discipline is the engine that generates commitment.

Disciplined people are not surface people, meaning their calculations in any situation are based on in-depth understanding. It will be as a result of this overall assessment that they will then determine if they are capable of disciplining themselves to produce commitment to whatever it is they’re planning on attaching or binding themselves to.

Uncommitted people are just the opposite. They are always ready to leap before they look and consider after they have acted. Fortunately, you don’t have to possess a spirit of discernment or be a prophet to recognise an uncommitted person. Uncommitted people are talkers, not doers; they are unstable, always ready with an excuse, rarely able to fulfil promises, classic disappointers, always there with big ideas and big talk, but it’s usually followed with little to no action.

These people are agents of Satan to keep you and themselves delayed in life. Scripture tells us that a double-minded (indecisive) man is unstable in not some but all of his ways, and always armed with excuses to defend his incapability to be disciplined to achieve commitment (James 1:8).

“He that tilleth his land shall have plenty of bread: but he that followeth after vain persons shall have poverty enough.” (Proverbs 28:19). This suggests that the one who works with discipline shall have a harvest at the end of the day, but the one that follows those who are just big talkers, big dreamers with no action, will not experience a harvest.

The bottom line is this my friend, if you want to be true to yourself and really determine if the carriage has been placed in front of the horse, then stop listening to uncommitted persons’ promises and exaggerated talk. “Ye shall know them by their fruits.” (Matthew 7:16)