Discipline

My usual "discipline" is to get up at around 5am, to read the bible, contemplate, and pray. This, of course, sounds very good... and often it is indeed a precious time. However, there are times when I wake up feeling so sleepy that I don't remember what I read in the bible and my prayer is something along the lines of... "Lord bless me today. In Jesus' name. Amen."

I developed this routine after I realised that I simply couldn't count on having enough time and energy in the evening to do this. Often, in the evening, if I want to study I won't have time to study the bible, if I want to read the bible to my satisfaction then I won't have time to do anything else. As spiritual discipline is important, I decided that 5am is a good time to get up.

It hasn't worked so well in the past few days, because I let my habits lax a little during my week break from clinical placements. There didn't seem any point in getting up at 5am if you're not actually going out during the day, and if you have all day to spare. So, this week, now I'm back in the hospital, I've tried to go back to my old routine, not without some issues.

This morning, after I slept through my alarm and woke up groggily at about 5:45am, I dragged myself out of bed (it's dark in winter, too), and fumbled clumsily through my bible. I read, but I'm pretty sure nothing was absorbed. Not only that, I kept my eye on the clock, making sure I don't have to rush off to eat and get ready for the day. Then, as I bent my head and closed my eyes to pray, suddenly something within me asked a question: "is this really what you think God wants? Only a single cell in your brain is active, you mechanically go through the motions of reading and praying - is this your spiritual act of worship?"

It was almost like a rhetorical question, so I'll not bother to answer it here. But it does point out to me that I need to reconsider what I regard as discipline, and how to worship with discipline. What exactly does Christian Discipline look like?

I'm very tired today (because I slept late last night and got up early today), and am very tired... but I will contemplate this, read something about it, and there'll probably something posted here soon about this topic. Suggestions welcome.

I've just realised that there is actually so much that I want to write about... and so much that I want to research... but time, unfortunately, is limited. One of these days I will retire from medicine, spend my days on an armchair, and write the most unreadably long blog posts ever seen.