Think about the resolutions we might make a month from now. Almost all of them involve some kind of discipline. Some of us have been thinking about them since our last round failed in February or March (or sooner) — weight to lose, new rhythms in important relationships, bad patterns to break, consistency and depth in our habits of grace.

Most of us admire discipline and want to have more of it. But we also find discipline difficult to develop, and even harder to sustain. We often want to bedisciplined, but without the day-in, day-out costs.

Think about the resolutions we might make a month from now. Almost all of them involve some kind of discipline. Some of us have been thinking about them since our last round failed in February or March (or sooner) — weight to lose, new rhythms in important relationships, bad patterns to break, consistency and depth in our habits of grace.

Yet as we pine for discipline, we should beware. Our Lord says of some, “They will call upon me, but I will not answer; they will seek me diligently but will not find me” (Proverbs 1:28). Some discipline — even in seeking God — offends him. There is such a thing as “ungodly discipline” — a form of hard work, persistence, effort, and commitment that drive him farther away, instead of inviting him near. We may appear busy, fruitful, even spiritual, all while estranged from God and severed from his grace.

God refuses a certain kind of diligence, but he runs toward another: “I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently find me” (Proverbs 8:17). As we aspire to and cultivate discipline, we need to learn the difference between the diligence God delights in and the diligence he despises.

Disciplined and Sent Away

When God says, “They will seek me diligently but will not find me,” his warning is even more devastating and terrifying. God declares to the wickedly diligent, “I will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when terror strikes you” (Proverbs 1:26). This is not divine indifference, but something far worse; it is hostility from the Almighty. These people are seeking God diligently, desperate for help and rescue — and he laughs.

The judgment is severe, but not arbitrary. Why does such discipline smell so awful in God’s nostrils? “Because You have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof” (Proverbs 1:25, 29–30). Because they disregarded and disobeyed God — until crisis came and they had nowhere else to turn. Therefore, when they finally turned, their repentance was not from the heart but leaned on the work of their own hands, so they could not find the God who is everywhere at once.

Jesus warns his disciples, “On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness’” (Matthew 7:22–23). We did. We did. We did. Jesus says, “Depart from me.” They held up the Babels they had built, and the Lord razed them all.

Discipline can become a mistress that leaves us naïve and proud today, and empty-handed before the Lord on the last day. The road to hell is paved with just as much discipline as the pathway to heaven.

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