Regarding my practical life, I am a disciple of David Allen’s way called Getting Things Done named after the title of his first book. He describes how to reduce the stress of holding too many things in your head and not knowing what to do next.
In his second book, “Ready for Anything,” he quotes a writer, J. Krishnamurti, who said, “Discipline does not mean suppression and control, nor is it adjustment to a pattern or ideology. It means the mind sees ‘what is’ and learns from ‘what is’.”
I thought this fit very well with the discussion of our small group around the discipline of study. Just last Sunday in another small group I witnessed how people can read an entire chapter of a book and lock on to one idea that reinforced a prejudice they brought to the study. Rather than seeing ‘what is’ and learning from it, many of the people bent the words to fit what they already “knew.”
When you study, approach the text with a receptive mind. But also a questioning one. What did the writer mean? What is the context–historical, social, philosophical? What were the writers contemporaries saying? How does this fit with other things that writer has published?
Dr. Henry Cloud, in his latest book “Necessary Endings,” describes the wise person as one who sees reality and adjusts to fit it and the fool as one who bends reality to fit what he already believes. I think in study we need to practice that discipline of seeing what is and learning from it. Always approach spiritual writings ready to be surprised and having your view of reality shaken. That’s what the Spirit does to us.
Faith Venture 
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