Make Your Bed!

“Make your bed!”  I use to hear this from my mother when I was younger constantly. I would  then sigh deeply and make it with an attitude, thinking the whole time, what’s the point?  Needless to say, the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree and I get the same reaction when I tell my children to do it.  Today, as I made my own bed, I pondered the importance behind this simple task.  Why is making your bed so important? Maybe I am asking this question because this week has been a week where I have been struggling with my flesh, including, making my bed.  Let’s get real, who really cares if your bed is made, because how many people go into your room when they visit? Or, as my son would so boldly ask, “Won’t I be just getting back in it tonight, so why bother?”  It’s tempting to just shut the door and not bother.  Trust me, I’ve done it a few times, but this is what I’ve learned about making the bed, it’s a small discipline that has payoffs later…

             Let me explain, in Hebrew 12:11 it says, “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”  Learning to make my bed in the morning is a symbolic gesture of me choosing to overcome my flesh.  Isn’t this what leading a disciplined life is all about—killing the flesh?  For some reason, it sets the precedence in my mind for the rest of  the day.  In other words, if I train my flesh from the start of the day, it makes it easier for me to continue to choose so throughout the day.  Some may argue, but I’m sticking with what I know works best for me.  No one knows or probably doesn’t care if you make your bed, but the way I see it is God sees and knows all.  Are you willing to be faithful with small things that may not seem to matter in the big picture?   What you do and don’t do matter.  Don’t get me wrong, the Kingdom of God is not going to crumble apart if you don’t make your bed.  However, it’s  not about the bed, it about a disciplined  mindset, a disciplined choice, a disciplined way of life that produces  fruit later.   Ask any great athlete or successful person how they achieved their goals and I can almost guarantee it began with small disciplines that led to greater ones along the way.

Are you lacking in the area of small disciplines that could help you get to greater ones? Do you have the tendency to only do the big things and skip the small things? If so, what small habits can you begin to help place you on the path to a disciplined life in God?  It’s been said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with one small step, or perhaps one made bed..So, go make your bed!