The Wilful Sunflower

I spoke to the chief tenant last night. Yes, I may stay on till Jan 15, and I don't even need to pay her rent – she said she'll just deduct the sum off my deposit. Cool stuff.

Tomorrow is New Year's Day. As a rule I don't make resolutions, mostly because I never keep to them beyond a week anyway. But after last year's experience, I decided I would do the same thing this year: make a commitment to God concerning some aspect of my life, habits or character that I particularly want to change.

The key word for 2003 is discipline.

Messiness, lousy money management, horrible time management – in other words, procrastination – all these are problems with self-discipline.

"Discipline" had been on my Most Hated Words list until somewhere towards the middle of this year. It was always a word I said with a grimace, as in, "Discipline! Ugh!"

It was never something I particularly wanted to have. I viewed people with a successful grasp of it as something akin to robots, living rigid lives with schedules, methods and lists. (Now you know why I don't like lists!)

This year it finally hit me: I've been rebelling! Imagine that.

I didn't exactly hear God speak to me, but if I had, it would have gone something like this:

My dear, you've been rebelling all this while, fighting so hard against something you know is good and right. Why? Simply because everybody's plugging it. They told you that it was good for you, that you needed it, that you must change. You, offended and irritated, told yourself you'd never succumb; you could do without it. But look at you: you're not happy with yourself, you're messing up real bad, and there's no way out. NOW will you admit that you need discipline?!?

Discipline doesn't necessarily have to be something bad or negative, you know. Discipline is positive. It’s something I want you to have. It's not going to rob you of your identity. You won't become a joyless robot living a structured life, I promise you.

I came to set you free. Can't you see you're living in bondage? Without discipline, your sinful nature gets the better of you. You struggle to manage your money. You strive – most of the time unsuccessfully – to apportion your time wisely and fulfil your responsibilities promptly. You come home every day and face the mess that is your room, and you don't know how to change, or where to start.

Won't you come to Me and let me build discipline in you? It's something you'll need if you are going to serve Me effectively. It's something you must have in order to become the woman I made you to be.

Discipline is not something to be abhorred, it is something to be coveted. To be disciplined is to be like Me. You pray, "Lord, change me," and you say you want to be more and more like Me every day. If you really want to be like Me, you must desire to be disciplined. There is an order to everything that I have made, and a proper time for each.

Come, desire discipline; I will teach you and build it in you, and help you...

All this required an almost total change of mindset in order for me to accept it as truth. My attitude and perceptions had to undergo a huge adjustment. Even now, I still have problems with the old way of thinking creeping back in when I'm not looking!

So now I pray to be disciplined. *sigh*