Initium (Beginning)

 New beginnings are always strange to me. Exciting, maybe a little scary, oozing with anticipation of what a new opportunity or circumstance or relationship could hold in its unknown depths. 

Starting this blog is one of many new beginnings for me. 

Like many others, the year of 2020 was definitely not what I expected it to be, and I've put a lot of expectation into this new year being different. My goals for the year all center around discipline and maturity, as my bachelor's degree draws to a close this semester and I begin to prepare for the transition to grad school. I'm trying to figure out career plans and housing situations and finances and relationship dynamics and a half dozen other nuanced situations going on in my life right now. It's a lot.

With so many things up in the air, in the midst of all this uncertainty I see an opportunity: to lay aside my tendencies to panic and to fearfully overanalyze the future, and just trust the One who holds my life in the palm of His hand. It's never an easy thing to do, but when has anything worthwhile ever been easy?

Merriam-Webster's dictionary defines discipline as "self-control" or "training that corrects, molds, or perfects the mental faculties or moral character," but I think that denotation only scratches the surface. When searching for the noun form of the term on Blue Letter Bible, I found myself in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, where Paul is reminding the church of Corinth of the purpose of self-discipline (in the context of denying oneself Christian liberties for the sake of the clarity of the Gospel). This reminded me of the "take up your cross and follow me" sentiment found throughout the Gospels, particularly in Matthew 16:24 and Luke 9:23. The need for self-denial and discipline is an essential one, but how does one go about doing it? 

This where the "renewing of your mind" as described in Romans 12:2 comes into play. Conformity to the world, in all its casual humor about procrastination and overall lack of discipline, is avoided by said renewing. But it appears that this transformation via renewal takes intentional effort. That's... discipline. So are we caught in a loop? Nope, though it looks like that at first. 

I tend to get caught in the anxious perfectionist mindset of not starting things that I'm not immediately good at, or anything that takes time to develop a skill in. But a few friends of mine have been pouring into me lately and reminding me that everyone has to start somewhere. And the beauty of that start in any Christ-centric goal, is that Jesus always meets us where we're at. And by His power we don't have to stay there. 

So I'm dedicating this blog to tracking my progress in the route to discipline in an assortment of areas: spiritual health, mental health, and physical health. There may be more to come, but let's start there.