It is the first day of the month and that's kind of like a mini-New Year's. The old month is in the past -- the big scribbled on page is gone and a new, clean page awaits. Soon it will begin filling up with the routine things that life brings. But before that happens too much, I take a little inventory of what I've learned in the past month and what ways I've applied the lesson to my life. I try to do that on the last day of the month but with life as it is, I usually end up looking back during the First.
I looked back on October today and realize I've had encounter after encounter about the subject of consistency. I don't mean like whether you like your ramen noodles as a soup or not. I mean doing something habitually. I want to commit to writing a post to this blog at least once a week. If I have something I want to share. If I have a clever thought others should think about, too. I'm coming here to share it.
Today my thoughts have been toward consistency and the places I have it and the places I don't. Unfortunately, it is easier to create the list of all the places I keep falling down. It's part of human nature I think. I am getting better about recognizing and celebrating those places. It usually is a first of the month small froyo from Wegmans ice cream freezer section cheering for the things I've done right the past month.
Then I try to get to the task of why I had the slips over the month. Am I over booked? Am I trying to accomplish the task at a bad time? Is this even something I want to do? I know the last one sounds childish but if I really don't want the task accomplished, it becomes easier to accept the other two. If I'm not committed to something changing, I won't see it as any priority in my calendar. If it is something I really do want to see accomplished but still have schedule issues, I have to examine the details of it. Through years of wrestling with it, I now realize there just are certain times of day I CANNOT sit down, close my eyes, and expect to accomplish much praying. I WILL fall asleep. I want to pray, but 5 am, 2 pm, nor 11 pm are the times for me to do it. I know several people that find praying at 5 in the morning works for them, just doesn't for me.
I will only tackle one slipping subject at a time. My therapist is fond of reminding me that I'm great at the planner stage; so great, I will forget to get to the do-er stage. If I only focus on one trouble task at a time, less I can get caught up in the analyzing and planning and focus more on the doing of the changes.
Our pastor has been talking about the Holy Spirit the past couple of weeks. That topic always circles around to the Spiritual gifts. I am again reminded that I was given the gift of exhortation. (You can see my October 29, 2015 post of my initial reaction to finding that out.) Everyone in my sphere of influence agrees that I need to write more often and more publicly. No deception. The thought of going out and making my writings public scares the crackers out of me! You will probably never see me speaking to a freshman class at a major university. I am a small group kind of person. I shared a previous post I wrote and it was suggested that it go onto the church's blog. When I asked our executive pastor how to find our church blog, he mentioned that it hadn't been in use for a few years, but asked about this blog. I had to say that I wasn't very consistent about writing for here. That was a little embarrassing. I think no one is reading and I get proven wrong again. So here I commit to writing here consistently.
