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I did a lot of sitting yesterday. 1 hour car + 3 hours airport +1 hour flight + 3 hours airport + 4 hours flight. Combined with a mind that still hasn't recovered from no sleep Friday/Saturday nights, there was a lot of exhausted and frustrated brain spinning.

When I don't sleep, my ability to determine and speak truth to myself vanishes. And I usually get sick. That's why I try to sleep a lot, even when people say I am lame for going to bed old-person-early. It's like the ANTs feed on my sleepless nights and timezone travels. (I'm happy to report, however, that the ants are currently vacated from the crack house in my patio.)

It takes a lot of energy to fight the ANTs. When lack of sleep takes that energy, sometimes easier to check out, detach from the fight, and just watch Burn Notice while I'm fighting crossword puzzles. (Hurry up, Netflix, I need that next disc!) There's has to be a balance between our tenacity and our ability to rest from the fight, considering that we're finite and run out of energy. As much as constant vigilance is needed, sabbath is also given to us in order to recharge. I'm grateful for people in my life who help me see when one or the other is needed.

In my sleepless traveled spinning brain, it's easy to get things confused. Actually, I get things confused even when I'm fully slept and functioning normally. Sometimes my brain labels things or experiences incorrectly. For example, I think I call challenges in my life :punishment rather than :discipline. The two terms are not synonymous, they have an essential difference.

Cloud and Townsend talk about this difference in their great book, Boundaries. I was reading it yesterday on the plane, and while sometimes they're a little cheesy, they also have helpful things to say.

Punishment is focused on the past, but discipline is interested in appropriate present consequence which encourage a better future.

Since biblical books are intended to be read as a complete document and not a chapter book, I read Romans 7 as a preface to Romans 8:1/2: There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. Romans 7 talks about the law, and how it condemns and punishes us, even Christians. We can't live under that alone, it's hopeless.

Living in fear of punishment doesn't inspire much love from children of human parents or God. Try it. You might even get obedience, but never love. But to live expecting discipline - to expect that actions (and ideas, if you read Imprimis) have consequences - is to live in reality. And reality, this moment, the only second you've got, is the only place Love exists. Love is a now thing.

I spent a lot of time a couple of years ago meditating on Hebrews 12, and this section of it keeps coming back to me. I've been enjoying The Message version, lately, because it keeps scripture interesting and my brain focused on the concepts of the bible, not just whatever translation phrasing I happen to have memorized.

3/11: In this all-out match against sin, others have suffered far worse than you, to say nothing of what Jesus went through—all that bloodshed! So don't feel sorry for yourselves. Or have you forgotten how good parents treat children, and that God regards you as his children?

My dear child, don't shrug off God's discipline,
but don't be crushed by it either.
It's the child he loves that he disciplines;
the child he embraces, he also corrects.

God is educating you; that's why you must never drop out. He's treating you as dear children. This trouble you're in isn't punishment; it's training, the normal experience of children. Only irresponsible parents leave children to fend for themselves. Would you prefer an irresponsible God? We respect our own parents for training and not spoiling us, so why not embrace God's training so we can truly live? While we were children, our parents did what seemed best to them. But God is doing what is best for us, training us to live God's holy best. At the time, discipline isn't much fun. It always feels like it's going against the grain. Later, of course, it pays off handsomely, for it's the well-trained who find themselves mature in their relationship with God.

For me, nothing beats the declarative poetry of the ESV for verses 12/13: Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed.

You are not being punished, even though it feels like it sometimes. But in this life, no matter how grown up and adult and going-to-bed-early you are, you are being disciplined. Recognize the difference, live in the present, and hope for the future.

My hope for this moment is in Jesus, who absorbed the need for punishment, and is instead my example for discipline, for natural consequences, for choices, for LOVE.

Also, it's good to be home.