Disciplined people rarely take any action without considering its future implications. Of course, no one ever knows for certain what might happen down the line when they make any given choice, but the wise person at least thinks about it.Henry Cloud, in his book ‘9 Things You Simply Must Do,’ talks about the importance of ‘playing the movie.’ In our lives, it’s important to know how each scene contributes to the film’s ending. This is more than just cause and effect, which is, “If I do A, then B will happen.” It’s more like, “If I do A, not only will B happen, but C will too, and perhaps D, E, F and G. It’s the difference between simple cause and effect and the deeper version of sowing and reaping. Reaping is about what I will ultimately end up with if I sow this particular behaviour, choice, attitude, value or strategy. It is the long-term view, the end view, the view that helps us to choose discipline over regret.Playing the movie means not seeing any individual action as a singular thing in and of itself. Any one thing you do is only a scene in a larger movie; to understand that action, you have to play it out all the way to the end of the movie. After viewing the entire film, you can decide whether you really want a particular scene in the movie of your life. If it alters the plot for your story, or takes you to other scenes that you don’t want to live out, or even causes the movie itself to have a different ending than you had plotted, then you do not want it. No matter how inviting the scene is, you choose, where you have the option, not to include it. Conversely, if it alters the plot of your story in a direction that you would want to go; if it creates later scenes that you would want to Iive out, then you might include that scene. No matter how hard the scene itself is, you might want to choose it.This week, as we consider the importance of intentional living, we’ll be encouraged by Paul’s words to the early church, “I run straight to the goal with purpose in every step. I fight to win. I’m not just shadow-boxing or playing around.” 1 Corinthians 9:26. Paul encourages us to choose discipline over regret, in effect, to play the movie of our lives and consider whether we are running the race God has called us to, in a fashion that will cause us to win. Paul’s desire for his readers was to live lives of purpose and freedom because of their intentional and disciplined actions - what may seem tough in a moment could pave the way to a better story.