I have never experienced life without a television in the house.  For good or for bad my home has always had one.We knowing that learning happens through the television screen, but I don’t think that people thought about serious life lessons being taught through the screen when I was growing up.One of those life lessons that I wrongly learned through the television screen was that process wasn’t important.  If you look at any major television show, characters move from one scene to another quickly.  You often do not see all the time in between major events or activities.  I learned quickly as I watched these television shows that learning and development wasn’t necessary and process wasn’t important; things should just happen.I have seen the same life lesson beginning to be taught to my sons who see P.K. Suburban, Carey Price, and Sidney Crosby take to the ice on Saturday nights.  They fly down the ice, shooting and scoring, and making saves with reflexes like a cat with my sons thinking that they can be in the NHL without any real hard work.  My boys see the end result of years of hard work, practicing constantly and training without pause.  On my sons practice nights I hear, “we don’t need to practice I just want to play."I have to remind my boys that it is through the process of practice that a person grows in their strengths and abilities.As I have grown up I have had to relearn (slowly) that process is an essential aspect of life and the most important part of growth and development.  The idea that I will just be disciplined, that I will get rich quick, that I can have the career or pay check that I want instantly is simply not reality.  No one wakes up one morning and finds themselves disciplined or rich or living the life they always dreamed of without first putting in the effort.If this is true about life in general then I wonder why we think it will happen in our spiritual lives.  Why do we think that because we have decided to be spiritually mature we can wake up one morning and be just that?Just like everything else spiritual maturity is a mark of a disciplined life.   A solid committed relationship with Jesus takes time and consistent day to day work.  It’s process.Jesus gives us simple instructions when it comes to following him if we want a real committed relationsip.  He says, “if anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23).  This short statement has so much infused in it about what discipleship means, what it really takes to be a disciple of Jesus.   But the one component that I have stressed over and over again to myself and now to my sons is that this committed relationship with Jesus is process.  It takes time.  It takes a daily refocusing and recommitment to the work of disciplining ourselves to grow in our relationship with Jesus.Our relationship with Jesus doesn’t just happen like relationships on television.  Discipline and commitment are not easy realities we just choose like the push of a remote button.  I know that I have been learning this over the past few years, to just keep it simple.Focus daily on simple yet difficult discipleship.