Discipline is perhaps my greatest struggle when it comes to being an efficient homemaker and Christ-follower. I deeply lack self-discipline and it comes back to bite me again and again. The largest lesson I’ve had to learn in my life, is how to be self-disciplined so I can effectively and efficiently run my household. Do you ever feel like this? The good news is – there’s hope!

Welcome to the next part of our online book study of Say Goodbye to Survival Mode. It’s not too late to jump in and join the fun! You can read the introduction and see the full schedule of topics for the next 10 weeks. Or jump in with today’s discussion!

The things in life that are worth pursuing – your faith, a Christ-Centered marriage, faithful parenting, homemaking, and the other things that really matter – take hard work, determination, and lots of self-discipline. To be a faithful parent, you must constantly be supervising and instructing your children (especially in the younger years). God’s words and His teachings should always be on our hearts and minds and we are to daily and hourly instruct our children:

“You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” – Deuteronomy 6: 7-9

These verses paint a beautiful picture of self-discipline. It doesn’t come naturally to fall into a pattern of talking about God’s Word all the time – when you go for a walk, as you work throughout your house, at bedtime and when you first get up. It takes constant diligence, prayer, and hard-work to discipline yourself in these areas.

“Many of us long to be more disciplined. We crave order and peace. We want to be better managers of our time and lives. We want to follow through with our good intentions. So we buy the best-selling book that promises to help stop procrastinating and get things done. We listen to podcasts that offer three ways to develop more self-control. We download a printable, household-organization planner and think it will magically whip our houses into shape. We take a workshop and hope it will motivate us to become more disciplined. We pray. We wish. We dream.” – Crystal Paine, page 89 – 90

Start With Christ

My journey with my lack of self-discipline (meaning I’ve had a hard time staying consistent in memorizing Scripture, exercising, keeping a budget, reading the Bible daily, etc.) has taught me one very important thing: My battle with self-discipline must first start at the feet of Jesus. My first step is recognizing this sin in my life (sin because this basically amounts to laziness in my life) and then repenting of this laziness.

Then I can come before the Lord, broken, and ready to work on my daily habits to live a more discipline life. Why? What is the point of cultivating discipline in different areas of our lives? So we can daily serve Christ and bring glory to Him by being more disciplined in all aspects of our life. 

If you struggle with self-discipline like I do, I want to encourage you to really recognize this sin, confess and repent to the Lord, talk this through with your husband so he can help keep you accountable, and take your first step today: Open up your Bible.

The First Step in Self-Discipline

Before you can focus on steps to being more disciplined with spending money, cooking consistently, exercising often, or other important endeavors, you must first cultivate the daily habit of spending quality time in God’s Word. This habit has to be formed first because you will need the strength that only He can provide to move forward into a more disciplined life.

Living with more discipline doesn’t happen overnight and it isn’t easy. It’s a constant battle of wanting to be lazy and forcing yourself to make wise decisions for your family. It’s starting with one habit (Bible reading) and slowly working on this day by day. It means taking 30 minutes to really spend time in God’s Word and to form that into a habitual daily habit before trying to become more disciplined in exercise.

Slowly, over time, you will form habits and become more disciplined. I’m grateful that I can look back to the beginning of my marriage and see how far I’ve come. I still have a lot of work to do in becoming more self-disciplined, but I’m so thankful that the Lord has taken me as far as He has!

“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.”  – 1 Corinthians 9: 24 – 27

Today we’ve taken a larger view of discipline. And this is where it must start. We must recognize our struggle with self-discipline and know how to first start and then we can tackle how to apply this to our home. We can then take those principles and learn how to better tackle those mounting piles of laundry, learn how to develop a daily exercise routine, and get back some control of our day. Come back on Friday when we will tackle how to start small and start to daily become more disciplined!

Read More In This Series:

• The 10 Week Schedule for our Online Book Study 
• Taking the First Step in Gaining Control of Your Home
• Taking on Too Much – Learning To Say NO in Your Homemaking
• Creating a Personal Priorities List – For your Life and Homemaking
• Determining How You Should Spend  Your Time as a Homemaker 
• Creating a Manageable Routine & Schedule as a Homemaker
• Setting Goals in your Home so you can Stay on Task & Focused!
• How to Turn Your Homemaking Goals into a Reality
• Learning Self-Discipline Must First Start with Christ {you are here}

5 Keys to Planning a Successful Day 

Free PDF Guide & Training Video! 

If you want to take this concept further and jump into how you can plan for a successful day (and what that even means), then I want to invite you to sign up for my FREE video and PDF guide 5 Keys to Planning a Successful Day. 

Sign up and you can start going through it right away! Join me to chat about how, with a few simple tips, we can start living with more intention. It might seem overwhelming to work on being more intentional and purposeful in your schedules and to-do list. But in reality, it takes just a few minutes to begin transforming your routines with 5 simple steps…

5 Keys to Planning a Successful Day Sign Up >>