Sometimes I wonder why self-discipline is so hard. An ancient writer who wrote a letter to some people in Rome says that he can’t do the things he wants to do and things he doesn’t want to do he can’t stop doing. I can totally relate to him. The human race for some reason finds the things that are good for us don’t come natural and the things that can harm us or at the very least aren’t the best for us come so natural.
I am wrestling with this trying to figure out is it hereditary, environmental, the way you are raised? I just don’t know yet. It is all areas of life too, try telling yourself no to something we immediately crave what we said no to. Every year people say they are going to quit and fill in the blank, smoking, soda, fast food. We all know what invariable happens it is the rare person who follows through on this.
Even as Christians, how many actually have a consistent prayer time? I talk to so many people that talk about how “boring” reading the bible is to them. The things we want to do for some stupid reason we can’t. But the things we don’t want to do try and stop us from doing them. I have heard of a website in which you can sign up and commit to some type of change in your life and the way they keep you accountable is if you fail they send your own money to a charity that you absolutely despise. For example, one Christian signed up and committed to making a change in his life and if he didn’t follow through this website would send $100 to planned parenthood in his honor.
What drastic measure but we all know that it takes some serious drastic measures to get us to change. Why is this. Why does sugar taste better thank kale? Why does soda taste so much better than green tea? Why does sitting in front of a tv for five hours feel so much better than reading a book for an hour?
It is one of my most frustrating thoughts I have been wrestling with. So many people desire that change in their life what ever it happens to be and we have resorted to looking for the theoretical magic blue pill because they have lost hope that they can change themselves. So we have resorted to believing in the pill that you can take to make it happen. We have a surgeon go in and cut the fat out instead of figuring out how to lose the weight.
I have found that part of the problem is our desire for change to happen overnight and because the change takes a long time we give up too early. We have lost the ability to change little by little because we want the results right away and thus we have programmed our minds that if it doesn’t happen in three days it isn’t working. We have so much growing to do.