Discipline—the Path to Righteousness

August 7, 2024

My mind went to so many places when I decided to use this week’s photo. We’ll get into those in a few minutes, but first, let me tell you what you’re looking at.

While on a trip out west, my wife and I stayed at the Hotel Del Coronado in Coronado, California, just across the bay from San Diego. Here are a few trivia tidbits about the hotel. The hotel opened in 1888 with room rates that included 3 meals a day at around $2.50/night.[1] I checked some prices, and you can get a room this winter anywhere from around $700 – $2,200 a night.[2] I don’t think that includes any meals. As a note, our rooms quite a few years ago were way below this as we were attending a national convention with pretty deep discounts.

The hotel was built at a cost of $600,000 and furnished for $400,000.² In 2023, it was estimated to be worth about $1.6 Billion.[3]

I say all that just to let you know, if you’ve never been there, Del Coronado is a special place with amazing amenities, views, and beaches. The photo is one view from our room overlooking Coronado Beach.

The group running on the beach are Navy Seal candidates from the nearby Naval Amphibious Base Coronado.

So, as I looked at this picture, I thought of a couple of things.

First, in the foreground you can see tent structures that housed beach furniture and other conveniences to make the stay pleasurable. If you squint with your mind, you can see where these items represent the here and now. They make me think of what we need to live our daily lives (on a grand scale in this scenario, no doubt).

Second, if you look out over the ocean, you can see the vast openness of water as it blends into the blue sky. That view represents the hereafter, or what could be in the future. It’s where we want to be.

Third, in the middle of the here and now, and the hereafter, are the Navy Seals.

Those elite soldiers represent what it takes to move from the here and now to the hereafter. They are practicing required discipline to move from where they are to where they want to be.

Here is an excerpt from a post by Sean Kernan whose dad is a retired Navy Seal and shared stories with him. I’m going to include a portion of his story about the Navy Seal Hell Week, something all candidates must go through to get where they want to be.

“You wake up on a Sunday morning at ~2 AM to gunfire. You run around getting yelled at. You are doing pushups, carrying logs, rolling in the sand. This continues all day, then into the night.

As people are sleeping in their warm beds, you continue exercising, shivering, and getting shouted at.

Monday morning comes. The drills repeat from sun up to sun down with non-stop exercise and physical torture. Then, all through the night, you do it again.

Then, Tuesday morning rolls around. You’ve gone more than two full nights without sleep. You’ve endured intense stress, cold water, and difficult exertion the whole time. By Tuesday morning, you’re more tired than you’ve ever been in your entire life.

That’s when you start to feel sorry for yourself.

“Oh man, it’s only Tuesday. How am I going to get through all of this?”

“If I’m this tired already…and I’m not even halfway through…”

The people that start thinking like this are the ones that quit.

The people who succeed — only look a few minutes in front of them. They don’t worry about Thursday or Friday. They are only focused on each individual exercise. They get through it one thing at a time.”^[4]

I believe we can apply some of this wisdom to our walk with the Lord.

You and I may be in the middle of life with all of its problems and concerns. Even though we once accepted Jesus’ call to be his disciple, it may seem like reaching the end of the race in good fashion is impossible. There are so many things that try to distract us from spending dedicated time with Him the way we know we should.

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Much like the Seal candidate who starts to think about all they have to endure for the rest of the week to become a Seal, we may allow our spiritual-self to wander through our days fretting and worrying about all we’re going through.

Seal commanders know the candidates must be pushed to the extreme to be conditioned for the future task at hand.

God knows that our faith is realized the most when it is tested. Maybe it helps to view this testing as training. And here’s what the Bible says about that.

“For the moment, all discipline seems not to be pleasant, but painful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.” (Hebrews 12:11, NASB)

My prayer is that we are able to train well and practice discipline as we make our way from the here and now to the hereafter.

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[1] https://hoteldel.com/history/

[2] https://hoteldel.com/stay/check-rates/

[3] https://therealdeal.com/national/2023/05/13/blackstone-nears-950m-refi-on-hotel-del-coronado-in-san-diego/

[4] https://navyseals.com/5361/four-habits-of-discipline-my-seal-dad-taught-me/