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I just started Uprising by Erwin McManus. Right off the bat he starts talking about some stuff that really hits home with me, but the biggest thing is the difference between opportunity and freedom. He tells a story about a pianist that calls someone up out of the audience at a performance and tells them they are free to play whatever they want. The problem is that the person doesn’t know how to play. The thing is that opportunity is empty without discipline. Freedom only comes when discipline has given us the skills to play. It’s a beautiful picture of the importance of ground work in everything we aspire to, but especially in our relationship with God. The discipling isn’t to be a better person, or level up, or get more HP, brownie points, etc.; it is so we can be free. It’s like there is this opportunity, but we don’t know what to do with it. Instead of sitting down and listening to the teacher, practicing scales and chord formations, we try to play. We figure out chopsticks and play it for the rest of our lives. We think chopsticks is all there is, and the worst part is that we think we’re really good at playing chopsticks. We mess up sometimes, but when we get it right, it’s awesome. It just sucks that it’s still chopsticks. Endless opportunity doesn’t equal freedom. I have never thought about it like this before.