I've Wanted Discipline My Whole Life

I’ve wanted to be more disciplined and more spiritual for my entire life. That’s not an exaggeration.

I come up with great ideas all the time. Following through is a different story. I have ADHD, and the idea is the exciting part. The day-after-day work that comes after it is where I lose the thread.

For decades, my spiritual life was pretty much nonexistent. Not because I didn’t care. I’ve always been drawn to it, for some reason. But I’d get pulled away. And if I’m honest, sometimes I put it off on other people and used them as the excuse. Sometimes I was just afraid of what others might think of me.

Recently that started to change. A few good days in a row, then a few more. It doesn’t sound like much. After decades, it’s a lot.

What Sirach 6 says about discipline

I was reading Sirach 6 and highlighted this:

“My son, gather instruction from thy youth up: so shalt thou find wisdom till thine old age.”

Sirach 6:18

Sirach is part of the Ethiopian Orthodox Bible.

What I appreciate about this chapter is that it doesn’t pretend discipline feels good. It says wisdom lies on the undisciplined person like a heavy stone, and they throw it off before long. That’s honest. Discipline feels like a burden at first.

Then it uses a farming picture:

“Come unto her as one that ploweth and soweth, and wait for her good fruits.”

Sirach 6:19

You don’t start with the harvest. You start with plowing and sowing, the plain, repetitive work nobody sees. The fruit comes later. For someone like me, whose brain loves the idea and gets bored in the middle, that verse is almost too accurate.

It isn’t all willpower

This is the part that gave me some hope. The chapter doesn’t say “grit your teeth and force it.” It says to go looking:

“Search, and seek, and she shall be made known unto thee.”

Sirach 6:27

And it says not to do it alone:

“Stand in the multitude of the elders; and cleave unto him that is wise.”

Sirach 6:34

Then the chapter ends here:

“Let thy mind be upon the ordinances of the Lord and meditate continually in his commandments: he shall establish thine heart, and give thee wisdom at thine own desire.”

Sirach 6:37

So discipline isn’t the goal by itself. It’s the path that puts me where God can give me what I can’t produce on my own. I don’t have to white-knuckle it. I have to keep showing up, keep good company, and keep my mind on His word.

What I’m holding onto

When I’ve tried to build discipline before, one missed day turned into a week, and then the guilt of the gap made it harder to come back. So I’m trying to protect whatever made these last good days possible, instead of just hoping the streak lasts.

I’m also trying to be honest about the excuses. Some of what pushes against me is real. Some of it is me, looking for a reason not to start.

I don’t have this figured out. But I’ve been pulled toward this my whole life, and I’m starting to believe that pull means something.

The plowing comes first. I’m plowing.