Self-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.”

On May 5 of last season, pro baseball player[New York Yankee] Aaron Judge was mired in one of the worst slumps of his career, sparking panic in the Bronx. So when he stepped to the plate for the first time, he decided to try something different.

Up to that point, Judge had always used an open batting stance, which angled his left foot toward the third baseman. That afternoon, Judge moved the placement of his front leg ever so slightly back toward the pitcher. He promptly blasted a home run into the right-center field bleachers, followed by a booming double a few innings later.
The change to Judge’s setup was almost imperceptible at first, but it had an unimaginable impact: In the year since, he has put together one of the greatest stretches of hitting that baseball has ever seen.

In May, Judge closed up to 9 degrees—and slammed 14 homers to go along with his .361 batting average. He never went back. By the end of the season, Judge was standing just 2 degrees open, or almost completely squared to the pitcher. He also shrunk the distance between his feet from more than 34 inches in April 2024 to around 31 inches since.

Preaching Angles:

Many times in the Christian life, small changes (to our devotional life, our service, our evangelism) can lead to significant progress.

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.

In today’s digital age, it’s become increasingly common for parents to hand their upset child a smartphone or tablet to calm them down. But could this seemingly harmless practice be hindering children’s emotional development? A new study from researchers suggests that using digital devices as emotional pacifiers may have unintended long-term consequences.

The researchers aimed to understand the relationship between parents using digital devices to regulate their children’s emotions and the development of children’s self-regulatory skills.

Self-regulation is a crucial skill that develops in early childhood. It involves the ability to manage one’s emotions, control impulses, and direct attention. These skills are essential for success in school and later in life. They help children navigate social situations, focus on tasks, and cope with frustration.

Imagine a scenario where a child is having a tantrum in a grocery store. A parent, desperate for a quick fix, hands over their smartphone to distract and calm the child. While this might work in the moment, the study suggests that repeatedly using this strategy could prevent the child from learning how to manage their emotions on their own. Children whose parents often relied on “digital pacifiers” showed more severe emotion-regulation problems, specifically, anger management problems, later in life.

Instead of relying on screens to soothe upset children, parents might consider alternative strategies that help kids learn to manage their emotions. For example, parents could try talking through emotions with their child, using deep breathing exercises, or engaging in a calming activity together like reading a book or coloring. These approaches may take more time and effort in the moment, but they could pay off in the long run by helping children develop crucial self-regulation skills.

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).

Sociologist Dalton Conley shares a story about backpacking through Europe when he was 18. He writes, “I had no iPhone. ... I couldn't Google. And I was alone.” But according to Conley his long stretches of solitude weren't a bad thing. We all need time to disconnect, cutting the umbilical cord of technology.

He continues, “Time away from our social networks … helps us figure out who we are. ... I'm afraid that with no solitude, we will become less, not more, connected to our friends and families.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Believers should also consider the necessity of solitude and the perils of our over-connected world. Used properly, solitude can connect us with God. Conley's main point needs to be heard—especially in noisy, busy, over-connected churches.

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.

In their book The Power of Moments, Chip and Dan Heath describe an experiment in which participants underwent three painful trials. In the first, they submerged a hand for 60 seconds in a bucket filled with frigid, 57-degree water.

In the second trial, the time was increased by 30 seconds. For the first 60 seconds, the water was still 57-degrees. But in the final 30 seconds, it was raised to 59-degrees. In neither trial were participants told how long the experiment would last.

Before their third and final bucket, they were asked if they'd prefer to repeat the first or second experiment. A whopping 69% chose the longer trial! Think about that for a moment. In both of the first two trials, their hand was placed in frigid water. The second trial was 30 seconds longer and only slightly less uncomfortable in the end. Yet, more than two out of three people asked to repeat the second trial. Why?

Psychologists tell us it's because when people assess an experience, they rate the experience based on its best or worst part (that is, the peak) and the ending. They call it the "peak-end rule."

Whether you like it or not, people will tend to remember you for when you were at your best, or worst, and for the way you were in the end. It's impossible for any of us to always be at our best. Our worst selves will sometimes slip out no matter how hard we try to hide them. But the ending is something we can better control. Knowing that it's the end, we can devote more time and attention to getting it right.

Possible Preaching Angle:

1) Christian Life; Discipleship - Right now, your life may be average by most standards, with all of its highs and lows, but if you make an effort to end well your every encounter with other people, you'll leave them with a good impression. There are no second chances for making a good first impression, but there's always the chance to end well. 2) Pastor; Minister - Overall, a sermon may be so-so; but if the conclusion is memorable, it'll likely be remembered fondly weeks later.

Potbellied pigs are running wild in Delaware, alarming agricultural officials and raising the risk of damage and disease. The problem started when people bought the pigs as pets, but then quickly discovered they couldn’t control them. The Delaware Department of Agriculture said, “Owners who can no longer manage these animals are likely to relinquish ownership and allow them to roam.”

Sellers often mislead buyers by calling the pigs micro pigs, teacup pigs, and mini pig. But potbellied pigs can weigh up to 200 pounds and can live up to 20 years. The pigs can reproduce at a young age. Female potbellied pigs can become pregnant at three months old, and males can breed at eight weeks of age. The wild pigs dig up and destroy crops. Feral swine can also leave fecal material in waterways and wetlands, contaminating water sources and increasing disease risks for humans, wildlife, and livestock.

Possible Preaching Angle:

In a similar way, we think that we can allow small sins into our lives because they are manageable or controllable, only to find out that they are not. They will run wild.

Do you realize that 30 percent of all men of working age in this culture are not working? There are many reasons for this. Some workers lack the skills needed for all but the lowest-paid jobs. Some jobs have been eliminated because of technology advances or cheaper overseas labor. Some have discovered government benefits that enable them to avoid working.

A study for the Mercatus Center of George Mason University, reports that “75 percent of inactive prime-age men are in a household that received some form of government transfer payment.” The researcher believes that government disability benefits in particular are one reason for the lack of interest in work.

Another trend toward irresponsibility is the growth of the video-gaming culture in our society. Many young men and women are spending countless hours every day or many hours of the night just gaming away. They may lose sleep, college opportunities, and work advancement with addictions to meaningless competitions that consume time and energy but produce nothing.

Possible Preaching Angle:

What would you call a pastime where a person spends all their time, all their money, all their resources, pursuing things that are not real and that never will benefit them or society? We would call it slavery. And those who are enslaved by such meaningless pursuits ultimately lose all respect for themselves. Work gives us dignity, because work itself is dignified.

Paul Ford writes in an article on Wired, what happened when he switched his weight loss meds and found a miracle cure. Decades of struggle with an insatiable desire for food, gone in an instant. But his reflection on the experience is less of an advertisement as it is a probing of human nature amid advances in pharmacology. He writes:

This is a technology that will reorder society. I have been the living embodiment of the deadly sin of gluttony, judged as greedy and weak since I was 10 years old — and now the sin is washed away. Baptism by injection. But I have no more virtue than I did a few months ago. I just prefer broccoli to gloopy chicken. Is this who I am?

How long is it before there’s an injection for your appetites, your vices? Maybe they’re not as visible as mine. Would you self-administer a weekly anti-avarice shot? Can Big Pharma cure your sloth, lust, wrath, envy, pride?

On this front, the parallels between Ford’s weight loss drug and every other drug are almost obvious (whether they be coffee, THC, or any fill-in-the-blank name brand). The alluring promise that frailty is simply a matter of chemistry. More interesting is what happens to Ford himself after the one signal pathway is silenced — his brain averts its gaze elsewhere:

Where before my brain had been screaming, screaming, at air-raid volume — there was sudden silence. It was confusing. […] “I urgently need, I thought … Something to fill the silence where food used to be. Every night for weeks I spent four, five hours twisting Moog knobs. Not making music. Just droning, looping, and beep-booping. I needed something to obsess over, to watch YouTube videos about. I needed something to fail at every night to feel normal.

Possible Preaching Angle:

The flesh is never satisfied and cannot be conquered by human will or science. Impeding one of the desires of the flesh simply ignites another. The church of big pharma might provide a kind of cure, but there is no panacea for human nature, except “the washing of new birth and renewal by the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5).

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.

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.”

Dean Gunther is a tattoo artist currently residing in Manchester, England. And when a recent client came to him with a bold idea, he was so stoked about the idea that he did it for free.

The client was a friend who hates working out, but wanted to have the look of well-toned, “six-pack” abdominal muscles. So, he asked Gunther to tattoo the look onto his stomach. Gunther said, “I had seen really bad ones attempted before. Because I specialize in color realism, I wanted to give it a go.” Of course, it wasn’t only the technical challenge that got him on board. He also had an additional motivation. "I thought it would be funny."

Once they completed the two-day project, they took a video and shared it on TikTok to verify the rapidly spreading rumor of the six-pack-tat, which looks impressive from a distance. Gunther’s followers responded with a combination of disbelief and bemused congratulation. One user summed up the approach with a simple aphorism: “if you can’t tone it, tat it.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

We shouldn't be satisfied with only an appearance of goodness or righteousness. Without spiritual discipline and the holiness that results, it is nothing but empty posturing.

In a nation of freedom-loving people, we emphasize liberation. But according to author Pete Davis, liberation is not enough. He writes:

Freedom isn’t sufficient for a fulfilling life. The car lets us go anywhere and the internet lets us see anything—but happiness has not come automatically. Despite our ability to think freely, to find all the cracks in the stories we have been told—the world we want to live in has not automatically emerged from the ashes of the old one. The liberated spirit has helped avoid some tragedies, but it hasn’t built global peace. It has helped diagnose the maladies of our time, but it hasn’t figured out a cure.

A free world requires creativity, belief, unity, and inspiration, too. That’s because liberation is only half of the story of who we are. The other half is dedication. People want to be free, but we want to be free to then do something. ... We leave, but we don’t cleave. We desecrate, but we don’t consecrate. We melt down, but we don’t solidify into something else.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Christ has come to make us free, but that does not mean a life without rules. Unbound freedom is not a blessing. It's chaos. The solution is a voluntary wholehearted dedication to something greater than ourselves. The solution is to “lose our lives” for Christ’s sake (Matt. 16:25; Mark 8:35; Luke 9:24).

In his book Making Sense of God, Tim Keller notes that when the national anthem is sung at sporting events, the cheering begins on the line “o’er the land of the free.” The singer quite often extends that line with a lengthy high note. Keller writes, “Even though the song goes on to talk about ‘the brave,’ this is an afterthought. Both the melody line and our culture highlight freedom as the main theme and value of our society.”

But true love imposes limits on our obsession on freedom. The film Secondhand Lions captures this well. In a scene near the end of the film, a small fatherless boy who has been abandoned by his mother to be raised by his crazy great-uncles. The boy tells one of his uncles, who is prone to depression and has contemplated taking his own life, that he cannot do that because he, the small boy, needs him. “You're my uncle. I need you to stick around and be my uncle.” The faithfulness of love will shape—and constrain—the freedom of love.

A woman from Omsk, Russia, is reportedly suing McDonald's over an advertisement featuring cheeseburgers and chicken nuggets, which she said caused her to break her fast during Lent. Ksenia Ovchinnikova, an Orthodox Christian, said she was trying to stay away from meat and other animal products during the six-week period leading up to Easter.

She said, “When I saw an advertising banner, I could not help myself. I visited McDonald's and bought a cheeseburger.” In her official complaint, she explains: “In the actions of McDonald's, I see a violation of the consumer protection law. I ask the court to investigate and, if a violation has taken place, to oblige McDonald's to compensate me for moral damage in the amount of one thousand rubles ($14 US dollars).”

Are you a good person? There’s an easy way to tell, according to the Internet at least. It’s based on what you do with a shopping cart when you are done with it. If you put it in the designated shopping cart collection area in the parking lot, you’re good. If you leave it to drift off into parking spots, you’re bad.

The test has been discussed on Reddit and Twitter. On Reddit, a user laid out a very detailed description of the theory that essentially claims:

The shopping cart is what determines whether a person is a good or bad member of society. Objectively, the correct action to take is to put the shopping cart where it’s supposed to go. It’s not illegal to abandon the cart, so you can do that without consequence. … Therefore the shopping cart presents itself as the apex example of whether a person will do what is right without being forced to do it. No one will punish you … or fine you … you gain nothing by returning the shopping cart. You must return the shopping cart because it is the right thing to do.

Another said:

For a date you need to take them to a restaurant and do the waiter test & then later go to the store with them & do the shopping cart test.

Finally,

The only way to truly know a person’s character, is to secretly follow them to the grocery store and watch what they do with the cart when they’re done.

You can view the Reddit thread here.

Possible Preaching Angle:

God also tests our character, but instead of the shopping cart test, God uses other measures to examine us: The test of love (1 Cor. 13), the test of the fruits of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23), the test of Christlikeness (Rom. 8:29), the stress test (1 Pet. 1:7), and others.

Only 44 people have reached the summit of all 14 of the world’s 26,000-foot peaks, according to the record books. Or, maybe no one has. The difference rides on a timeless question getting a fresh look--what is a summit?

Ed Viesturs believes he knows. He is one of the 44, the only American on the list. In 1993, climbing alone and without supplemental oxygen or ropes, he reached the “central summit” of Shishapangma, the world’s 14th-highest mountain. Most climbers turn around there, calling it good enough.

Before him was a narrow spine of about 300 feet, a knife-edge of snow with drops to oblivion on both sides. At its end was the mountain’s true summit, a few feet higher in elevation than where he stood. “Too dangerous,” Ed told himself. He retreated but then he said, “I was one of those guys where if the last nail in the deck hasn’t been hammered in, it’s not done.” Eight years later, Ed climbed within reach of Shishapangma’s summit again. With a leg on each side of the narrow mountain spine, he shimmied across it. He touched the highest point and scooted back to relative safety.

There is a summit, and then there is everything below it. Can close ever be good enough? By asking a simple-sounding question—What is the summit?—the researchers are raising doubts about past accomplishments and raising standards for future ones.

Eberhard Jurgalski has spent 40 years chronicling the ascents of the 26,000-foot peaks. And now he has some jarring news: It is possible that no one has ever been on the true summit of all 14 of those peaks. Some stopped on the central summit, not daring to straddle the ridge the way Viesturs did. Some turned around at a popular selfie-taking spot without scaling the precarious ridge hidden just beyond it.

Climber and author David Roberts says, “The summit does matter. Why does it matter? Because it’s the whole point of mountaineering. It’s the goal that defines an ascent.”

Australian explorer Damien Gildea said, “People are stopping short because it’s too hard. And I say, that’s not really a good excuse for a climber.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Let’s also beware the danger of giving up before reaching the finish line of the Christian life. Thinking that “close enough” is “good enough” leaves us short of the prize (Phil. 3:14).