Difference Between a Discipline and a Virtue

A spiritual discipline is a spiritual practice that you do. It is training one’s spiritual faculties and moral character. Prayer, for example, is a discipline, it is something that you do.

A virtue is a disposition that results in behavior that is good, beneficial, and pleasing to God it is the quality of one’s character.

The Difference

Disciplines are something you do, virtues are something you are. Humility is a virtue, humbling yourself is a discipline.

Although they are different, they are related. Humbling yourself leads to one gaining the virtue of humility. Acts lead to dispositions. This is important.

Sowing and Reaping

As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.”

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Jay N. Forrest

I am a Christian Teacher focused on the Pursuit of God through Prayer, Contemplation, Silence, Solitude, and Simplicity. I became a Christian in 1983, attended Bible school, and eventually earned my Doctorate in Ministry. I served as a Protestant minister for 27 years and also spent about a decade practicing Buddhism. In 2005, I was baptized into the Catholic Church, but have since joined the Episcopal Church. I live in the desert southwest of the United States.

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