A Call To Die Challenge: Day 18

Good morning! I am back after being gone for several days… I got sick on Thursday, felt better Friday, caught up with work the next few days, and got stuck in complacency after that. I failed to be disciplined in consistency, but I learned a valuable lesson from it that I want to pass on to you today after a short reflection.

What is your reaction when you read the verse John 3:16? 

Does it carry any emotional impact or increased your awareness about how you are living your life?

Or. do you skim over it as you have seen and heard it over a million times?

I have been in church my entire life, so my response is more like the second. 

But it is genuinely the most profound and impacting truth in the Bible!

Jesus, God in the flesh came down to serve, to stoop down to reveal Himself to us in a way we could understand, to be ridiculed, beaten, and crucified by His own creation… pretty stale, right?

Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross gives us insight into every facet of the Christian life, we can never grow out of needing to reflect on it daily.

Need self-control? Remember that forgiveness came through a heavy payment, Jesus’ life for your freedom from sin. How could we sin again?

Do you not feel loved? Here is God loving you in the ultimate way.

Feel unappreciated and want to stop helping the people who take advantage of you? Having trouble forgiving the person who hurt you? The people Jesus was trying to save were hurling insults and ridicule AS HE WAS DYING, and He prayed all the more for their forgiveness. 

Do you feel as if God has left you? He did not go through the torment of the cross to simply abandon you afterward.

Are you living an “average” life focused solely on your career and temporary dreams? Jesus continued on to the cross despite discomfort for the glory of God.

I could go on.

We are never beyond daily reflection on Jesus’ sacrifice. So perhaps you should reflect on everything this one moment in history means to you.

Now, here is a lesson I learned through failure. 

No matter how disciplined you are, there will be times when you fail and there will be times when life gives you no other option but to change direction.

The disciplined life not only involves being consistent, but learning to evaluate, adapt, and bounce back after failure.

Here are two key traits of a disciplined person, self-awareness and adaptability.

Self-awareness gives you insight into when you are slipping up, making excuses, or simply not being as effective as you could be. Self-awareness requires intentional reflection on secret motives and measurable progress. Thanks to God, we have the Holy Spirit which only increases our ability to master this trait.

Adaptability is a trait that involves being able to adjust to changing conditions. Sometimes life changes out living conditions, sometimes other people have different plans than you, and sometimes our own desires begin and levels of motivation change. Sometimes we are more tired than usual. Sometimes we simply become weakened by burn out and the excuses we have been fighting with routine get the best of us. The adaptable person may hit these road blocks, but they are quick to pivot.

Maybe you have struggled with consistency with this program, maybe you have not been as faithful with another commitment as you would like. Here is what I did, when I woke up to the fact I was starting to get too comfortable doing the bare minimum.

First, I found a piece of paper to write on and I asked the question:

What is not working right now? What is getting in the way of my progress?

Next, I asked:

What can I control? (I underlined any answer to the first question that I have control to change and added a squiggly line under the things I could not control)

Lastly, I asked myself:

What solutions can I put forward to change the things I can control?

I made a list of brainstormed solutions to the problems I have control over and looked for ways to work around the things that I can’t change.

Bonus tip: The best thing you can do in these sort of situations is take a look at your schedule and write out a new one that you will see on a daily basis.

Here is my paper, please excuse the handwriting. I just want to show how simple the process was and I didn’t need to make it look all pretty and neat, don’t let complexity become a barrier to creating solutions.

I also want to note that I did not give up spending time with God during this time. You cannot live disciplined with an all or nothing mindset.