“Christians are disciples, after all, and we therefore need to be disciplined. As biblical pastors, teachers, and mentors lead us we realize that we aren’t quite as spiritually fit as we thought we were. When we face a challenge or obstacle, we find our strength and stamina are weak. We need practice. Trials in life, or unexpected temptations often reveal that we do not have the stamina or aptitude in God’s Word that we may have thought we did.”
Christians are disciples, and therefore by definition, we are disciplined. Hebrews 12:11, “For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it,” is couched in an exhortation not to grow weary under the discipline of our loving Father. By using the illustration of a Grecian Olympic fighter, the preacher to the Hebrews teaches us that part of our discipline in the Christian life is conditioning. We need practice.
My son had a great Martial Arts lesson the other day. Every now and then, his instructor will spend some time differentiating between the sport and real self-defense. Well, this was a real self-defense day. Before they began getting physical, his teacher, Jesse, asked the students what should be the first thing they look for when they enter a room, such as the one they were in. Kids started yelling out uninformed answers such as, “a punching bag!” or “a fighting cage!” Clearly, they weren’t getting where Jesse was going with this, and so he laughs and says, “No! If you are thinking self-defensively, you should always look for available exits when you enter a new place.”
Then Jesse pointed to the side door in the room and told the kids that he was going to come up behind them one by one, grab them firmly, and attempt to carry them across the large room and out of the side door. He told them to imagine they were hanging out with some friends at a movie. How would they react if someone physically tried to take them? Or, maybe the side door represented a car that a kidnapper was attempting to put them in. He explained that it’s hard to predict how you would react in such a frantic situation, and that it is good to practice. Then Jesse put some headgear on, and said that any tactic they wanted to use was fair game; just don’t let him get them to the car door.
This became both very humorous and eye opening. The first kid he grabbed was clueless. He just meekly called out “mommy” while he was carried across the room and out the door. Jesse returns and quickly scoops up a 13-year-old girl. She kicked, elbowed, squirmed, and did a biting motion on the instructor. He let go and she ran. I had no idea how Haydn would react. His dad and I were impressed as H fought hard and wriggled out of Jesse’s grip after a kick to the groin. But he got a little cocky. I guess Haydn’s no quitter, so as his instructor was bent over, H kept pounding on him. As he drew in, Jesse grabbed him again and said, “You should’ve run when you had the chance!” Unfortunately, H got away again, and still lingered too long. He was grabbed again and taken away.