Change
A few months ago I leaned the wrong way on a wee wooden stool that I sit on at my dressing table to fix my hair and broke one of the legs of the base of the stool. I said to my husband that I would need to buy another but of course being a handy man he said I will fix it. So this stool sat in a corner of the living room for quite a time.
In the meantime I started to sit on my knees on the floor at the dressing table to do my hair each day. By the time my husband had gathered up the tools to fix the leg it was probably a couple of months.
When he had fixed it and it was put back to its usual place, I caught myself still kneeling on the ground to do my hair with the stool beside me. I had become so accustomed to kneeling each day I did it automatically without thinking even though I had the stool to sit on. This happened on quite a number of occasions.
As I pondered on this and asking the Lord what are you showing me?
It says about renewing of the mind in the Word of God, but as you can see, we are also creatures of habit.
Romans 12:2. Esv Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
We hear a lot about renewing our minds and what we speak, death and life are in the power of the tongue.
Proverbs 18:21. Esv Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.
But what about habits? Changing habits take effort and sometimes sacrifice. Changing a routine takes repetitiveness for it to settle and become part of who we are and what we do. There can be a resistance to change because it feels uncomfortable. Maybe it will take more time to start with as you learn new ways. Maybe it means letting something go that you want to keep in your life, a sacrifice.
For change, there’s a need for renewing of the mind, there is a need to learn to speak life and not death, then there is also a need to do, to take action. Not just the once but repeatedly until it flows and is settled in your lifestyle.
How many times have you seen something in the same place for so long that that’s where you go look for it. When I do a tidy up and declutter, I move things about or store items away in another place. Then when I need that item, where do I go but the old place where it used to be. That’s my memory because I seen it there over and over again. The new place I only saw it the once but the old place I saw over and over and that’s what came to my remembrance where it should be.
What if we started to create habits of the Kingdom of God. What if we started to pray 3 times a day, everyday. What if we rose every morning giving thanks and praising the Lord and commanded our day. What if we set aside a certain time a day to study the Word of God or a day of the week to fast and pray. What if we daily went for a walk to cast our burdens onto the Lord sharing with our Father what was worrying us or annoying us, so that peace would abound. What if we sat quietly, being still, each day waiting and listening to that still small voice. What if we made small changes each day and put them on repeat to create that habit that it becomes part of us. How would we change?
We say we have no time, we say are too busy, we say we are too tired, we can come up with so many reasons and excuses to not do these things, yet we are the ones that set our schedules, we are the ones that make choices, we are the ones that decide what we are going to do in our day.
This is the resistance to change. This is where we can choose to make changes and keep to them even when the enemy brings distractions to pull us away. We can stay firm to create those daily habits until they get settled and implanted in our days and our memories or we can continue to be tossed too and fro with every distraction never really making any headway, going around and around and never accomplishing, never growing into maturity. God says in James 1:22 Esv says to be a doer of the Word and not just hearers only deceiving yourselves.
I want to encourage you to set time aside, make small changes each day or night depending on what works for you. Press through the resistance, disregard the thoughts to go do something else. Time is one thing you cannot get back. It is important what we do with time for it does not stop. Make changes and see change happen within you. Blessing to you all, Love Denise
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