Discipline in Work Life and Spiritual Life
Discipline: an activity that provides mental or physical training. Do you have discipline at work...in your spiritual life?
This past Sunday, we talked a bit about getting into shape spiritually through regular sacramental Confession. Let's now look at the role discipline plays in our work lives and our spiritual lives.
Being disciplined at work and in your spiritual life makes demands on us. Yet so many of us seek comfort, pleasure, easy living. The idea of discipline makes some of us wince.
When you work at a job that makes serious demands on your time, you energy, both mentally and physically, you're more or less forced to forgo the "easy life" - at least while you're at work. And for some people, the temptation to "take it easy" when they're not at work can leads them in the wrong direction. Hey, I'm "off." Don't bother me! And so life outside of work quickly devolves into seeking comfort or thrills - or both.
But not us Catholics. We understand the battle we must wage each day. And the more we can discipline ourselves, the better we fight. Let's use perseverance as an example.
You may already appreciate the importance of developing the habit of perseverance at work. Looking at the two extremes of a boring job and a super-demanding job, perseverance plays a huge roll in doing a good job. When your work isn't all that inspiring - maybe totally boring - you need perseverance to stay focused and do your job well even if you're not "inspired" by the work. When you're work is so demanding that you feel like someone's beating on you day after day, you need perseverance to stay focused to do your job well, even as the next demand knocking at the door distracts you from completing the work at hand.
And so it goes with the spiritual life. You need the same effort and dogged determination to keep fighting the battle every day. You can't afford to leave your job and slip into the complacency of contemporary living. You can't afford to let your soul languish pursuing material comforts and mental distractions while you're not on the job.
Listen, this world - despite what the secular culture would have you believe - isn't designed to be easy or comfortable. It's not just your boring or demanding job that challenges you each day. The daily spiritual battle, where each of us works out his or her salvation, takes work - and much more important work than any job or "career."
Discipline yourself at work, and you may or may not succeed in the eyes of the world or to the degree you might wish. But if you discipline yourself in the daily pursuit of holiness, you may someday be able to say in the words of St Paul:
What can the world offer you that's better than that?
This past Sunday, we talked a bit about getting into shape spiritually through regular sacramental Confession. Let's now look at the role discipline plays in our work lives and our spiritual lives.
Being disciplined at work and in your spiritual life makes demands on us. Yet so many of us seek comfort, pleasure, easy living. The idea of discipline makes some of us wince.
When you work at a job that makes serious demands on your time, you energy, both mentally and physically, you're more or less forced to forgo the "easy life" - at least while you're at work. And for some people, the temptation to "take it easy" when they're not at work can leads them in the wrong direction. Hey, I'm "off." Don't bother me! And so life outside of work quickly devolves into seeking comfort or thrills - or both.
But not us Catholics. We understand the battle we must wage each day. And the more we can discipline ourselves, the better we fight. Let's use perseverance as an example.
You may already appreciate the importance of developing the habit of perseverance at work. Looking at the two extremes of a boring job and a super-demanding job, perseverance plays a huge roll in doing a good job. When your work isn't all that inspiring - maybe totally boring - you need perseverance to stay focused and do your job well even if you're not "inspired" by the work. When you're work is so demanding that you feel like someone's beating on you day after day, you need perseverance to stay focused to do your job well, even as the next demand knocking at the door distracts you from completing the work at hand.
And so it goes with the spiritual life. You need the same effort and dogged determination to keep fighting the battle every day. You can't afford to leave your job and slip into the complacency of contemporary living. You can't afford to let your soul languish pursuing material comforts and mental distractions while you're not on the job.
Listen, this world - despite what the secular culture would have you believe - isn't designed to be easy or comfortable. It's not just your boring or demanding job that challenges you each day. The daily spiritual battle, where each of us works out his or her salvation, takes work - and much more important work than any job or "career."
Discipline yourself at work, and you may or may not succeed in the eyes of the world or to the degree you might wish. But if you discipline yourself in the daily pursuit of holiness, you may someday be able to say in the words of St Paul:
"I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course.
I have kept the faith."
What can the world offer you that's better than that?
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