If you had to choose between owning a car or a house, I wonder what your choice would be. Assuming no constraints of pressing life circumstances that inevitably limit an individual’s choice to one and not the other, the average person will choose on the basis of either a good sense of financial judgement, or the lack of it. Apart from the luxuries of owning a car or a house, there is the underlying dynamics of two broad financial categories at play – assets and liabilities. Being no finance guru, I will not dare to delve into unfamiliar territory, or belabour the point beyond necessity!
The same is true in the world of sports, where a talent or sporting ability remains dormant without the required training and discipline. The chances of an untrained athletic ability serving well at the Olympics are quite slim indeed, perhaps non-existent.
When it comes to matters of faith, the reality is that being a Christian is more like owning a car than owning a house – yet not in the sense of making comparisons in current value, but in terms of the potential for appreciation or depreciation. Without doing very much, a house is less likely to lose value than a car left unattended.
As Christians, we are called to a life long journey of self-discipline. Yet, self-discipline is not an end in itself, but a means to an end.
To what end?
Self-discipline of any kind does not come by accident, or even wishful thinking. It may start out as an enjoyable activity, but is usually tasking on the long run. Paul in his letter to the Corinthians charges his readers to run in a particular way:
“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.” 1 Corinthians 9:24 (NIV).
Woven into Paul’s admonition is the motivation for any and every self-discipline effort – the prize. Not a trivial cue at all, as he goes on to say:
“Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.” v.25
Stripped of a worthwhile motivation, undergoing rigorous training of any kind is worrying. But for the Christian, the stakes are high, as they are of eternal dimensions.
Revisiting the world of finance, it turns out that assets are more pocket-friendly than liabilities. Let’s choose wisely, following in the footsteps of one who has gone ahead of us, “not running aimlessly, or boxing as one beating the air, but disciplining our bodies and keeping them under control…” We run hard for the finish line.
Thanks for reading!
Sike Osinuga