Consistency: Good Habits Are Hard To Start Once You Stop

Well, The Inconsistent Blogger is back!

My inconsistency in blogging has me doing some thinking. We all value consistency and faithfulness, and therefore we want to connect with people who are consistent. Inconsistent people are hard to be friends with, because it’s hard to have a relationship with someone we cannot count on.

And this teaches us something about life in general: We need to be consistent!

At the end of 2017 at a family get-together, my sister-in-law Alisha made a humorous comment at the dinner table about my social media presence. She mentioned that she won’t see anything from me for a month, and then her feed will be inundated with quotes and articles from me for the next two weeks. She was absolutely right – it was “famine or feast” with my posting in 2017.

My inconsistency last year spurred me to write 52 posts to use in 2018 before I posted my first one. However, I still didn’t post 52, because my computer crashed at the end of March and I had some ridiculous problems in getting a new one up and running. It wasn’t six months’ worth of problems, but once I stopped posting, guess what? It was easy to keep on “not posting.”

Isn’t that just like the rest of life? If you stop working out due to an injury, it is easier to continue not working out. If you stop dieting when you go on vacation, it is easier to continue not dieting. And in spiritual matters, if you stop attending church worship services or stop reading God’s Word, it is easy to continue not attending and not reading.

But since we know these things are good for us, then we ought to start them back up again as soon as possible.

Restarting Good Habits

And while blogging does not fit into the same category as many other beneficial items, my point is that consistency is important. And so my question for today is:
What spiritual activities have you stopped or been inconsistent about doing that you need to start back up again?

Consistency isn’t natural and takes intentional hard work. Aldous Huxley said:
“Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are dead.” Ha! What a great quote! Yes, the body of a dead person stays in the same place and does the same thing each day. And so the inconsistent life may be more natural and normal in this world, but such inconsistency does not help you move along the path God wants for you.

I hope you’ll choose today as the day to restart a beneficial spiritual discipline!

(And my plan is to post the rest of the year on Tuesdays and Thursdays.)

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