Discipline

A New York Times article was titled, “The Meaning of the Boston Marathon Finish Line, Then and Now.” This was the opening line: “For many runners, the marathon finish line feels holy, and reaching it divine.” Then it said, “The Boston Marathon is arguably the most elusive finish line of all, and not just anyone can cross it.”

We are in a race like that! And the finish line is everything to us! Paul wrote, "I have finished the race."

It might be the most precarious race in sports. To win the 60-meter hurdles, a runner has to start strong, clear five barriers taller than a kitchen counter and then outsprint everyone else—all in less than eight seconds.

It’s the sort of unforgiving endeavor where even the smallest mistake or tiniest hesitation can prove fatal. Unless you’re Grant Holloway.

He’s won it 75 times in a row.

What makes Holloway so good? For starters, he’s tall—standing at 6-foot-2 and with long legs. But he also embraces routine, stays humble, and keeps improving. Holloway lives two doors down from his coach. Even with his pile of titles, he is working on tiny improvements to his form, like lifting his trailing knee higher over the hurdle and keeping his foot tucked closer to his body.

“He doesn’t take anything for granted,” said his coach, Mike Holloway—no relation. “He challenges me to challenge him daily.”

Researcher Arthur C. Books told the following story about how we all can benefit from self-control and waiting.

My father-in-law, with whom I was very close, spent most of his life on the same working-class street in Barcelona’s El Clot neighborhood. Born in 1929, he saw Spain’s bloody civil war taking place literally in front of his house. His family experienced a lot of suffering. Some died; others spent years in jail or were forced into exile. He himself spent a year in a refugee camp, an experience that affected him for the rest of his life. Every time he wanted to make a point about society or culture, he always started with: “Well, during the civil war …”

One evening, a few months before he died, he read in his local paper an article of mine about unhappiness. “You have a lot of complicated theories,” he told me, “But the real reason people are unhappy is very simple.” I asked him to elaborate. “They don’t enjoy their dinner,” he responded. I asked him what he meant. “Well, during the civil war, we were always hungry,” he said. “But one day a year—Christmas—we got to eat whatever we wanted, and we were so happy. Today, people snack all day long, are never hungry, don’t enjoy their dinners, and aren’t happy—even on Christmas.”

He was not wrong in his main contention: Happiness rises, paradoxically, when you do not get whatever you want, whenever you want it. Rather, well-being requires that you discipline your will and defer your gratifications. Understanding this and taking action to change your habits can make you a much happier person.

A Michigan judge is taking a unique approach to combat shoplifting, ordering offenders to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot as part of their community service. Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the “Walmart wash” sentence will deter future thefts and serve as a reminder of the consequences of stealing.

Judge Clothier explained, “I don’t think everybody that steals is a bad person. Sometimes people are just down on their luck. But there’s going to be consequences when you break the law.” The judge introduced this unusual form of punishment in Grand Blanc Township, located 50 miles north of Detroit, and expects to assign 75 to 100 people to wash cars at weekend events in March and April.

Walmart has agreed to provide water and supplies for the community service events. Clothier said he was shocked by the extent of retail thefts after taking the bench in January, with many offenders coming from both Michigan and out of state. “It’s just crazy,” he remarked, recalling a day when he had 48 such cases on his docket.

The judge believes that the community service will not only be effective but also humbling. “I think it will be humiliating to be out there washing cars if you see someone you know.” Thus emphasizing the potential embarrassment of being caught in the act. Clothier even plans to lead by example, adding, “I will be there washing cars with them.”

Seven-time Superbowl champion Tom Brady was inducted into the New England Patriots Hall of Fame in a ceremony at Gillette Stadium on June 12, 2024. He thanked many people who helped him along the way. Near the end of his 20-minute speech, he spoke about the important life lessons he learned that made him and his team successful.

I would encourage everyone to play football for the simple reason that it is hard. It's hard when you're young to wake up in the offseason at 6:00 A.M. to go train and work out knowing that all your friends are sleeping in and eating pancakes. It's hard when you're on your way to practice, weighed down with all your gear and it's 90° out and all the other kids are at the pool or at the beach. And your body is already completely exhausted from workouts in two-a-days. It's hard to throw, catch, block and tackle and hit kids when they're way bigger and way more developed than you, only to go home that night bruised and battered and strained but knowing you have to show up again the next day for just the chance to try again.

But understand this: life is hard. No matter who you are, there are bumps and hits and bruises along the way. And my advice is to prepare yourself because football lessons teach us that success and achievement come from overcoming adversity. And that team accomplishment far exceeds anyone's individual goals. To be successful at anything, the truth is you don't have to be special. You just have to be what most people aren't: consistent, determined and willing to work for it. No shortcuts. If you look at all my teammates here tonight, it would be impossible to find better examples of men who embody that work ethic, integrity, purpose, determination and discipline that it takes to be a champion in life.

Editor’s Note: You can watch the video here (16 min. 45 sec – 18 min. 48 sec).

A growing number of high-profile tragedies are leading to prosecutions of parents not for their actions, but for their failures to act. One such case involves Elizabeth Puleo-Tague, whose teenager’s fondness for fast, erratic driving led to a crash that killed a passenger in his car. The mother of the boy who was killed wants her prosecuted for parental neglect.

Kiernan Tague, 17, was charged with second-degree murder in the death of his friend Flynn MacKrell after his vehicle, a BMW X3, lost control at 105 miles per hour and collided with a tree. Flynn's mother, Anne Vanker, believes that Puleo-Tague should be held responsible for her son's actions due to her negligence.

“To say this is a living hell is an understatement," said Flynn's mom, Anne Vanker, in an interview. “My life has been ruined. No one should ever, ever have to lose a child like this ... I still can’t believe my son — my big calm son — is gone.”

Vanker says that Kiernan’s mother, Elizabeth Puleo-Tague, should be held legally liable for Flynn’s death. An investigation by the local prosecuting attorney revealed a history of Puleo-Tague pleading with Kiernan to slow down. Despite her repeated warnings and the use of a safety app, Kiernan continued to engage in dangerous driving.

Months before the crash, Puleo-Tague had been receiving notifications from a safety app called Life360, informing her of Kiernan’s aggressive driving. Kiernan had even taken a photo of his Audi’s speedometer exceeding 140 miles per hour.

Texts show that Puleo-Tague repeatedly begged her son to change his ways, but he refused. But not only did she fail to stop her son from continuing in his reckless ways, she bought an even faster car—the BMW—and left the keys at home during a trip to Canada.

In her request for charges, Vanker compared Puleo-Tague to James and Jennifer Crumbley, who are serving 10-year sentences in prison because they failed to take a rifle away from their son Ethan Crumbley, who eventually took the lives of several people at his school.

"She was sitting on a ticking time bomb. She knows he's out of control, yet she basically gets him a weapon," Vanker said. "It's like she handed him an AR-15."

Possible Preaching Angle:

Regardless of the outcome of the case, the tragedy serves as a stark reminder of the importance of addressing reckless behavior in young people, and of the potential consequences of parental neglect.

Tim Hogan is the founder and CEO SaferStreet Solutions, a development firm focusing on improving traffic safety and reducing pedestrian deaths. For years, he and his team were looking at ways to prevent the phenomenon known as distracted driving, which is statistically comparable to drunk driving as a culprit for traffic-related fatalities.

Inspired by the signs that offer real-time feedback to speeding drivers, Hogan and his team invented the SmartSign. The signs are designed to identify motorists who hold their phones while driving, and display a message warning them to stop: “PHONE DOWN.”

Matt Gregory is a reporter in Washington DC. When the SmartSign was implemented in his city, he was somewhat skeptical of the sign’s efficacy. Matt said, “So, I went for a drive with my phone in my hand. And sure enough, ‘Phone Down’!”

Hogan says the device works by using sensors to identify the unique combination of heat signatures that result from a human holding a phone. If the phone is cradled or resting elsewhere, the sign doesn’t light up.

Rick Birt from the DC Highway Safety Office says the goal is to introduce the signs to the public as a form of behavior intervention. “Last year nationally, 3,500 people died from distracted driving-related crashes. The goal of these signs is to provide instantaneous feedback to motorists so that they have that opportunity to make a better choice.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

God is faithful to remind us when we are veering off of the path given for us, but it’s up to each of us to respond in obedience.

A landmark study by researchers in the UK found that simple health habits, such as eating a piece of fruit with lunch or running for 15 minutes before dinner, took an average of 66 days to form. Behavioral researchers say two to three months is a safe bet on average, but the more complex the behavior, the more difficult it is going to be to put on autopilot.

Recent research is uncovering how long it takes to cement different kinds of habits—and gives fresh insight into how to make them stick. According to a recent study, simple health habits like handwashing, for instance, take a couple of weeks to develop, while more complicated ones like going to the gym take four to seven months. “You can’t mindlessly go to the gym the way you mindlessly shampoo your hair,” says Katy Milkman, co-author of the study.

One big lesson if you’re trying to establish a new healthy habit: You will have better luck if you can simplify the process and repeat it often. Finding ways to make it fun and setting realistic expectations about how long it will take to establish the habit will help too.

Cole Mushrush does two things when he wakes up each morning at the family ranch: make up a pot of coffee, then fire up his laptop to see if any cows have wandered astray. Not many do, because electronic collars have been hung around their necks that give them a jolt if they try to cross one of the invisible fence boundaries created on a computer. The digital fence follows the contours of a pasture, and the collars are designed to keep the cows hemmed in without having to go to the expense of building a real fence.

He said, “The collars have mostly deterred cows from wandering past the no-go zone—although the animals don’t always behave as desired after a shock that comes following warning beeps. Some of them close their eyes and run. We don’t need that.”

The cows undergo a four-day training regimen which included a beep followed by shock, and playing around with the boundaries. There were a few rule breakers, such as when a cow might see her friend on the other side of an invisible fence. Mushrush said, “There are social cliques within a herd. Sometimes a cow will walk through the shock to be with their friend.”

If you are wondering what the shock feels like, it is reported to hurt less than a bee sting.

Possible Preaching Angle:

We know we have freedom in Christ but sometimes we need to be reminded or warned that we are crossing a line which God has placed there for our good.

It’s no secret that many college students spend much of their four years at school drinking way more than they probably should. Now, a new study is actually putting a number on the plethora of unfortunate consequences that comes from a wild night of college drinking.

Over four years, researchers say the average college student deals with 102 alcohol-related consequences the morning after. These range from blacking out, suffering a hangover, being pressured to have sex with someone, or having to miss work or class because they drank too much the night before.

However, the team found one major factor keeps many students from overdoing it at a college party—strict, disapproving parents. Researchers say college students who thought their parents would disapprove of their alcohol-related dilemmas ended up reporting fewer negative incidents after drinking than their peers who partied harder.

Research professor Kimberly Mallet said, “Kids really look to their parents for guidance in a lot of ways even if they don’t outwardly say it. It’s empowering for parents to know that they can make a difference. We often think of peers as having an influence on drinking behaviors, but we found that parents can make a difference, even after their child has left home.”

It’s ironic that Grace Community Church, pastored by John MacArthur, is located in Sun Valley, California, because its leadership seems committed to keeping certain details hidden from light.

Christianity Today published a story in February about the struggles Hohn Cho had with getting people in his church to admit fault and correct an injustice. Cho is an attorney, and had been an elder at GCC. A year ago, he and several other elders were tasked with investigating claims of spousal abuse from a woman in the church’s care. What he discovered was that she’d been rebuked by elders for failing to reconcile with her husband, but later the husband was imprisoned for child molestation and abuse, vindicating her claims.

Cho says he repeatedly asked church officials to privately apologize and make things right, but they refused. He says Pastor John MacArthur himself told him to “forget it,” and Cho was eventually pressured into resigning from the board. Even after his resignation, Cho was contacted by numerous other women from GCC who’d been given similar counsel to endure abuse from their husbands. Ultimately, he concluded that he just could not forget it.

Cho wrote in a report to the elder board, “I genuinely believe it would be wrong to do nothing. At the end of the day, I know what I know. I cannot ‘un-know’ it, and I am in fact accountable before God for this knowledge.”

Cho told reporters at CT:

They sided with a child abuser, who turned out to be a child molester, over a mother desperately trying to protect her three innocent young children. And that was and is flatly wrong, and needs to be made right. Numerous elders have admitted in various private conversations that “mistakes were made” and that they would make a different decision today knowing what they know now. But those admissions mean you need to make it right with the person you wronged; that is utterly basic Christianity.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Abuse; Church Discipline; Failure, Spiritual - We can't claim to stand for the truth if we won't tell the truth when it's inconvenient to do so.

When Keith Stonehouse started receiving a flurry of orders from the takeout service GrubHub, it didn’t take him long to realize what had happened. Stonehouse had allowed his six-year-old son Mason to play on his phone before bed. Mason rewarded his kindness by ordering a whole lot of food. “Why did you do this?” asked Stonehouse to Mason, who hid under his comforter. Mason replied, “I don’t know. I was hungry.” Mason then proceeded to interrupt his father’s lecture to ask if the pizzas he ordered had arrived yet.

Stonehouse later said that the $439 pizza order was canceled by his bank for appearing fraudulent. But that more than $1,000 worth of food was successfully ordered and delivered, creating a very full refrigerator and emergency offers to friends and neighbors to share the unforeseen bounty. Stonehouse said, “I had to keep stepping out of [his] room and calming myself down. You want to yell at your son, but he’s only six.”

The next day, Stonehouse and his wife sat down with Mason and had a talk with him, explaining the gravity of his actions. They explained that because he did this without permission, they would have to use the $150 in his piggy bank to help pay for all the hot dogs, chili cheese fries, jumbo shrimps, and other foods. Stonehouse said, “We showed him one-by-one. He was a little devastated but he understood.”

​Possible Preaching Angle:

We've all had moments where our eyes are bigger than our stomachs, but immaturity only increases our susceptibility to temptation.

According to a report in the Washington Post, the most influential voices in police reform aren’t necessarily politicians or even other police officers. Instead, those most likely to create behavioral changes in policing are municipal insurance agents. As in many other situations, the thing that often ends up getting people’s attention is money. That was the case in St. Ann, Missouri.

After a series of high-profile police chases that resulted in property damage and/or bystander injury, St. Ann was targeted by activists and sued by civilians for how their officers conducted traffic pursuits. But when police chief Aaron Jimenez was unwilling to change his department’s procedures, he faced an ultimatum from insurer which provided liability coverage for the city and its police department. If the department didn’t restrict its officers use of dangerous traffic pursuits, their insurance coverage was going to get canceled. And when city officials looked for other coverage options, it became clear that doing so would double their insurance costs.

Jimenez said in an interview, “I didn’t really have a choice, If I didn’t do it, the insurance rates were going to go way up. I was going to have to lose 10 officers to pay for it.”

Of course, insurance costs for any policy will rise after a series of claims against the policy. When citizens of a jurisdiction are successful in suing their police department for wrongful death, excessive use of force, or other similar claims, the money awarded to the plaintiffs is usually paid by such an insurer. So, ultimatums like this are often the only effective way to hold police agencies accountable for their misbehavior. In such agencies, it’s literally too expensive not to change.

Possible Preaching Angle:

1) Change; Discipline – When we do not respond to God’s warnings by changing our behavior, God will strongly motivate us through his discipline, which can include consequences; 2) Accountability; Finances - As members of society, we should exercise accountability with one another, especially with how we apportion our funds. Finances can speak when other avenues are closed.

Six in 10 Gen Zers and Millennials have a complicated relationship—with their cars. A recent survey of Gen Z and Millennial car owners reveals that it takes an average of eight warning lights for them to schedule vehicle maintenance. However, one in four tend to disregard and continue driving with broken speakers or a radio, excessive emissions, low tire pressure light, oil change, or scratches on their vehicle’s body or windshield.

Two out of three say they’re OK with their car not being up to par as long as it passes a state-licensed safety test. On average, it takes five breakdowns for Gen Zers and Millennials to buy a new car.

People stop driving their car and get a new one when the upkeep surpasses their budget (39%), there are too many strange sounds or smells (38%), too many parts have to be replaced (37%), or too much of it is being held together by tape (37%).

Possible Preaching Angle:

This is also true for most people in their spiritual lives, regardless of their age. They will ignore the warning signs and continue with sinful behavior as long as they think they are managing to “hold it together” and get by with it.

The largely unknown Franz Mohr once claimed, “I play [the piano] more in Carnegie Hall than anybody else, but I have no audience.” Mohr, was the Chief Technician for the world-famous piano makers, Steinway & Sons. A New York Times obituary from Sunday April 17, 2022, described how Mohr worked:

Sometimes a string would snap or a pedal would need adjusting during a concert, and he would step into the spotlight for a moment. But he did much of his work alone, on that famous stage and others around the world. He might have been mistaken for a pianist trying out a nine-foot grand for a recital — until he reached for his tools and began making minute adjustments, giving a tuning pin a tiny twist or a hammer a slight shave.

For years he went where the pianists went. He played before presidents and foreign dignitaries. He also attended to the world’s most famous performers’ personal pianos.

But he never begrudged taking a backseat to the stars. His boss, Henry Steinway, once said, “To understand Franz, one must understand … that his Christian faith is at the core of his being and affects everything he says and does.” Mohr claims that he loved being a “faithful plodder” who strove, in the words of Jesus, to be “faithful in little things.”

Police officer Chris Ford tries to be courteous in all of the interactions he has with citizens during his shifts on traffic patrol. All of Ford’s interactions are captured by the mandatory body cams on his person. But there is also an additional measure that helps motivate him to be pleasant and professional, even when members of the public are standoffish, irritated, or just flat-out rude.

Ford is required to hand out his business card to everyone he interacts with, and on the back is a QR-code that encourages citizens to rate their interactions with him. Using a star-based system called Guardian Score, officers are rated on criteria such as communication, listening skills, and fairness. According to founder Burke Brownfeld, the program is designed to correct the traditional power imbalance between law enforcement officers and the citizens to whom they are supposed to be accountable.

Ellsworth Weave, president of the local NAACP branch said, “It’s a way of letting the community know that the police are not here to attack you. They are there to help you and protect you.”

Chuck Wexler of the Police Executive Research Forum says programs like Guardian Score are a great way to measure the quality of officer engagement. “At a time when many people are questioning police accountability and how police deal with citizens, police departments are looking for ways to measure how they are doing. And this is one of them.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Christlike leadership demands that reputations be backed up by truthful accounts of actions. If/when leaders make mistakes, they should own up to them and do their best to do better.

Moms and dads understandably experience a great deal of worry and uncertainty when choosing a parenting style. A recent article by Good Housekeeping's Editor and Chief, Jane Francisco, offered this advice:

When my son was a toddler, I struggled with the concept of discipline, how to know what was too much … or not enough. So, I called up my dad, a teacher for decades, and asked him what parenting style he thought yielded the most well-adjusted kids. His answer was pretty simple: You can’t really go wrong as long as a) your child clearly understands that they are loved unconditionally and b) your approach to discipline is consistent, regardless of how strict (or not!) you are.

The takeaway? I probably won’t mess up my kid too badly as long as I deliver love and consistency (and don’t accidentally put him out with the recycling!). My dad’s “recipe” certainly calms me when the idea of parenting becomes overwhelming, and I hope it has the same effect on you ... there is no single “right” way — and being a parent can be an adventure as original as you are.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Raising God's children is a weighty task. If you're not concerned about how you do it, you're likely doing it wrong. But parenting is simpler than we make it. Love them unconditionally, show them consistency, and don't put them out with the recycling.