Disciplines Divine Qualities

Photo taken in Cambridge, MA (2025)

Let’s discuss the divine qualities of Discipline, serving us as a key to freedom. 

Discipline is marvelous, it’s a gift. It is undoubtedly a quality to be desired, a key to success, and a vital ingredient for personal growth. I want to explore how discipline is God’s gift to mankind, for those who welcome it and receive its divine attributes.

Let’s go back to the garden.

God gave Adam and Eve a choice: they could eat from every tree in the garden and every seed-bearing plant, except one, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Here was the agreement, to obey God's voice and trust His Word, or listen to another voice.

As Eve approached the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, standing in the audible zone nearest to the tree, she encountered a deceptive voice, cunning and manipulative. It gripped her soul with curiosity and a hunger for power and knowledge. She extended this experience to Adam, who also partook. From that moment, evil and wickedness were infused into the DNA of mankind…woven into our most primal and carnal core.

Discipline was present, yet eclipsed by love. Daily devotion and consistent proximity to God were designed to protect and preserve the holiness and purity of what humanity was meant to be. Discipline could have offered freedom, for undisciplined behavior keeps us enslaved to our moods, feelings, and carnal desires.

But to the one who chooses discipline and the pursuit of truth, who gleans from the seed-bearing plants in the garden, as this metaphor illustrates, they discover the beauty of freedom. You see, freedom lives within discipline. And as I see it, discipline lives within love. Love is not an emotion but a choice. For if you love Him (God), you will obey Him. And to obey Him, you must choose to continuously go (discipline in action) to Him and to His Word.

Continuing with this line of thought, I believe that God, from the beginning, offered freedom, but left the clear path for Adam and Eve to choose for themselves. 

Would they choose freedom or slavery? 

They chose slavery. As a result, we are born into enslavement to our desires and passions, filled with gluttony, rage, discontentment, greed, wickedness, and self-destructive patterns.

However, the one who disciplines themselves to go to the Gardener, to the Creator, to YHWH, and keeps His Word, moves from slavery to freedom. You will be greatly surprised the divine attributes you will see flood your life by applying this divinely orchestrated quality. It is my hope that this theme “discipline” becomes a key, a gateway, a pathway for exponential growth and empowerment– it is also my hope that you consider the One worthy of such discipline. 

by: Bryant Borges, M.A., QMHP