A Word on Discipline

I've been reading the book The Celebration of Discipline by Richard J. Foster and found some wise words on the goal of spiritual disciplines:

Every Discipline has its corresponding freedom.  If I have schooled myself in the art of rhetoric, I am free to deliver a moving speech when the occasion requires it.  Demosthenes was free to be an orator only because he had gone through the discipline of speaking above the ocean roar with pebbles in his mouth.  The purpose of the Disciplines is freedom.  Our aim is the freedom, not the Discipline.  The moment we make the Discipline our central focus, we turn it in to law and lose the corresponding freedom.

The Disciplines are for the purpose of realizing a greater good.  In and of themselves they are of no value whatsoever.  They have value only as a means of setting us before God so that he can give us the liberation we seek.  The liberation is the end; the Disciplines are merely the means.  They are not the answer; they only lead us to the Answer.  We must clearly understand this limitation of the Disciplines if we are to avoid bondage.  Not only must we understand, but we need to underscore it to ourselves again and again so severe is our temptation to center on the Disciplines.  Let us forever center on Christ and view the Spiritual Disciplines as a way of drawing us closer to his heart.

Let us all be disciplined not for discipline's sake, but to know the freedom that comes with knowing the One who bore our sins and bought us with His blood.