Passion and Discipline

Recently I've been thinking about the relationship between passion and discipline:

Think of an old, skilled pianist playing in concert and the wonderful sounds that are made.

Or a married couple who once forgot their love for each other but now have a healthy and loving marriage.

Or a young Christian who still goes through many struggles but over years has gone from finding the bible boring to now dwelling richly in it each day.

What about our passion (or enjoyment) and discipline in following Christ? What about those days when we feel up for giving Christ our everything, and then those days when we just plain don't?

I guess at different times in our lives there will be a crazy amount of interplay between passion/enjoyment and discipline, and being realistic there's no way we will constantly feel passionate about following Christ and also have the discipline to get on with it. With this in mind I was thinking about the dangers of relying on either discipline or passion.

1. Relying on discipline

When there's that thing we seriously don't want to do (but need to do), going through the discipline of getting on with it can often turn out for the best as you get stuff done. However if we focus too much on our discipline a danger is that we might encourage a 'you need to work harder' mentality which could sideline grace and rest, where if something goes wrong we get down and if something goes well we get proud.

2. Relying on passion

A genuine passion for something can provide a great drive, which can then lead to great results. However a problem here is that when there is no passion you will never put in the time or effort. You can become fickle and constantly change your plans depending on your emotions, which can lead to a 'I will only do what I feel like doing' mentality.

So what's the alternative?

Rely on Christ.

To throw ourselves upon He who gave Himself for us and admit that we will not always feel fired up for Him, and we will not always have the discipline to be obedient to Him, but in all things we will choose to rely on Christ and his love for us.

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
"For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us"
Romans 8:35-37.