It’s been a time, hasn’t it?

In thinking over the last 13 months, one of the words that comes to mind is “rut.” Especially during the early days of the shutdown, it felt like being on an enormous hamster wheel. Every day was the same – wake up, eat breakfast, go to the bedroom/office, Zoom meetings, and so on. Surely you remember the great joy and overwhelming excitement in those days of anything that would break up the endless monotony.

A trip to the grocery store.

Having to get a monthly tank of gas.

Getting takeout from a restaurant.

Anything. I mean, anything – just to break you out of the rut.

It occurs to me that what we experienced was, in some ways, an acceleration of what life in general feels like. Though much more pronounced in something like, say, a worldwide shutdown, life can many times feel like that same kind of hamster wheel. Doing mostly the same thing, at mostly the same time, on mostly every day.

Herein lies the rub, because one of the things Christians find in the Bible is the goodness, value, and importance of a disciplined life. The Christian experience is, in many ways, about establishing a set pattern of practices like Bible study, prayer, reflection, and fellowship alongside the people of God, and just keeping it going:

For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline (2 Tim. 1:7).

And here:

Don’t you know that the runners in a stadium all race, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way to win the prize. Now everyone who competes exercises self-control in everything. They do it to receive a perishable crown, but we an imperishable crown. So I do not run like one who runs aimlessly or box like one beating the air. Instead, I discipline my body and bring it under strict control, so that after preaching to others, I myself will not be disqualified (1 Cor. 9:24-27).

Now you could look at those passages and think the Christian life is spent living in a rut. Surely this can’t be the case. After all, it was Jesus who offered not just life, but a life of abundance (John 10:10).

If that’s the case, there must be a difference between a life of discipline and life in a rut. Sometimes that’s hard to see, but there is indeed a difference. Perhaps the clearest way to spot the difference is in the effect.

Living in a rut and living a life of discipline both do have effects, but the effect comes in the opposite direction. In both cases, though, there is an increasing amount of return. If you’re living life in a rut, then the rut is going to accelerate into even more sluggishness, ill temperament, and bitterness. As you spend more and more time in that rut, it’s going to get deeper and deeper and consequently harder and harder to get out of.

A life of discipline will have a similar trajectory, but in a different direction. The rut you are making with these disciplines will become deeper and deeper, but those ruts are transformational in nature. You will find your thinking altered, your joy increased, and your hope deepened. You will find your patience growing rather than diminishing, your perseverance emboldened rather than hampered, and your faith more present than distant.

Of course, it’s hard to see this in the moment. It’s only in looking back over a sustained period of time that you see the true effect.

But perhaps that’s a good exercise for today as we continue to emerge from the rut of the last 13 months. And perhaps a good question to ask, to know the difference, is simply this:

How are you different now than you were 13 months ago? You have been formed by either the rut or the discipline.