Discipline

“Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives tales; rather, train yourself to be godly.  For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.” - 1 Timothy 4:7-8

I know what physical training involves: time, commitment, and sacrifice.  Not to mention injury, pain, and occasional moments of depression that it’s not going as well as you thought it would or think it should.  It’s grueling.  Especially when you try to jump right in, as I did.

I spent a whole year thinking my soccer dream had died when God just wanted me to take a break; and while I was physically active over the summer with baseball and farm work, I certainly had no real physical training.  I didn’t strain myself much, didn’t test myself, and I certainly didn’t watch what I ate - I couldn’t really care less at the time. I was hungry and wanted some quick and easy food so I grabbed a couple cookies, or I was tired and felt like relaxing with a beer and a ballgame on TV, or I drank a cold pop because I was hot and thirsty.

So imagine the idiocy it must have taken to say ‘yes’ when Redeemer soccer came calling.  I was probably ten pounds overweight (not that much, I know, but still), my drink of choice over the summer was a dead split between a bottle of water and a bottle of beer, and to top it off, I have never -ever - been a good endurance-based athlete.  Even as a kid, I had trouble with long distances, and that doesn’t really change all that much unless you work on it growing up - which I didn’t, obviously.

Thank goodness you’re a goalkeeper, right, Cam?

I’m just going to take a minute here.

*maniacal laughter*

Ok.  Back to it.

Yes, in a game, I will probably never run more than 18 yards at a time, and that about 10-20 times per game.  Yes, we played a grand total of 8 games.  Yes, I was intended to be the backup for all 8 of those games, meaning I would play less than every member on the team except the two coaches.  In fact, the chances of me playing at all during those 8 games was about 2.3%.  But none of that actually factors into being a backup goalkeeper.

The point of being a part of the team is that when the team needs you, you step up.  That requires both mental focus and physical preparedness.  I had the former, but the latter had left a little while ago.  If people got a chuckle out of the first-year players not being completely prepared for the first grueling week after tryouts (which I didn’t even attend, so it was like skipping the frying pan and jumping straight into the fire), they would have been in absolute stitches at the sight of me.  We ran fitness evaluations the first Thursday of classes, and all I could do afterwards was kneel in front of the toilet and wait for the inevitable expulsion of my stomach contents - and I had only made it through about two-thirds of the testing at significantly lower levels than my teammates; none of them had even come close to throwing up.  Imagine what that’ll do for a guy’s self-confidence.

I listed three things that physical training involves that aren’t so cool: pain, injury, and the occasional bouts of depression when it’s not going so well.  That was the third.  In fact, that whole week was the third.  In addition to my appalling lack of physical conditioning, other things that could make or break me as a goalkeeper just were not there: my goal kicks were awful - more often than not, I would flub it and put it right on the foot of one of the attacking players; my reads on incoming crosses left me out of position more often than not, and I was having trouble hanging on to shots and as a result, giving out juicier rebounds than Vesa Toskala.  Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to be a worse goalie than Vesa Toskala?

Actually, that entire week was the first one as well - pain.  I was expecting it going in, of course, but I wasn’t ready for the seemingly unending cramped muscles, mistimed landings, and brutally hard shots  missing my hands and hitting me in other areas of the body.  Oh, and the diving.  That’s pretty important.  And also hard on the body.  Hit the ground at full force, your entire body stretched out and taking the blow, pick yourself up, take about three seconds to get set, and do it again.  And again.  And again, until the other guy has recovered from his own time in the net and can take his turn.   I would stagger through the door and collapse into the couch on a nightly basis, drained of everything but exhaustion.

And I’m not allowed, for about a month, to let any of this show.  That’s probably the worst part - I had no outlet for my frustration or my exhaustion except for the soccer balls coming my way on a daily basis, and even those usually only served to increase my frustration, and by extension, my exhaustion.

Remember how I said earlier that my long-distance running stank?  Well, our coach liked making the team run if we weren’t performing.  And quite often, as you’d expect from an 0-8 team, we weren’t performing very well in practice.  So we ran a lot in that first week.  We probably averaged about one suicide a practice, and I don’t mean half-and-back, full-and back.  We went to the six-yard box and back, then to the 18 and back, then halfway to midfield and back, then to half and back... then repeat those same lines, but on the other side of the field.  Plus one last full length of the field - and back - for good measure.  Brutal.  I routinely finished well behind everyone else (and I mean well behind: I’d be halfway to the other 18 yard box and half the team would be finished with the other half on their way back from the full length run) which was about as confidence-building as a kick in the groin.  And let’s not forget, my  muscles were cramping, my breath was coming in gasping wheezes, and everyone’s waiting for - you guessed it - me.

I spent the entire year going home completely gassed after every practice.  It was like my own personal torture that I was subjected to five times a week plus weekend game days.  But it got easier.  My body started to respond better to the training, my technical abilities were becoming sharper, and I was only 90% drained instead of 100%.  Small victories.  But I kept showing up, kept putting in the time, and it got easier.  I trained myself to play through pain and to keep myself emotionally stable even when it wasn’t going so well.

Humility check:  that physical training, the hellish first week, the 0-8 finish, even the fact that I got into six games despite the fact I was never supposed to step on a field: that is only of ‘some’ value.  Translation - not much.  

Ha.  Well, there goes any semblance of puffed-up-ness.

I’m not saying that I just spent a month on something with not much value, because there was more to what I did than just the physical training and the gameplay.  But there are parallels here to my story and the verse I started off with.  I’ll walk through it with you.

“Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives’ tales...”

Godless myths?  Old wives’ tales?  What is Paul talking about here?

At that time, one of the biggest problems Timothy would have had to deal with was teaching contrary to the Word.  So let’s roll with that.  “Have nothing to do with things contrary to the Word.”  Is that acceptable?

I’m going to assume by your silence that it is.

Ok.  Let’s draw an analogy from my physically demanding month.  In order for me to have been able to train and perform to my fullest ability and potential, I needed to eat and drink properly.  No midnight bags of chips, no cans of pop, keep the beer to maybe one per week, and stay away from the ice cream.  Eat healthy, keep an eye on the nutrition labels, and make sure that the food you’re eating today will have benefits tomorrow.

The same applies here.  In order for you and me to fill our spiritual potential, we need to ‘feed,’ as it were, ourselves accordingly.  And that means cutting ourselves off from things that have no place in our lives - cut the lying, cut the disrespect, cut the cursing, and keep away from things that tempt you.  Make sure that what you do today will benefit you, or perhaps others, tomorrow.

“...rather, train yourself to be godly.  For physical training is of some value...”

No good thing comes easy, we know that.  What we usually don’t know is what each good thing is going to cost us to obtain and maintain.  I know that my physically draining month will do me good, but even that will fade.  Joints will creak, muscles will deteriorate, and I simply will not be the athlete I used to be.

“but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for this life and the life to come.”

Godliness does not fade.  Godliness has no end, assuming you properly maintain it.  The cost is never too high.  Trust me.

It is not going to be easy.  Much like that first week of soccer I had to endure, it is going to involve pain.  It is going to involve a few hits to your self-confidence, and sometimes you are going to wonder if you can keep going and if you’re ever going to be at the level you need to be.

These three things hold true here as well: Time.  Commitment.  Sacrifice.  These three words can be summarized in one word: discipline.

Discipline yourself.  Keep going.  The reward is more than you know.