Adjusting Your Plans

Nearly two weeks into the new year and the newness has worn off. That new year smell has faded, and you have probably settled into the same old routines. Why bother with fad-ish resolutions or goals for the new year? After all, there is life to be busy with. But is it the life you want? Are you finding yourself frustrated at the lack of accomplishment in your life?

Breathe.

Sometimes, the best way forward is to stop moving and take a look around. Are you missing something? Do you need to continue moving in the same direction? Is the resistance you are feeling positive or negative resistance? Positive resistance is the feeling you might have if you were breaking free from a restraint. As you strain against the bonds, you feel hope and the sense of anticipation at the coming freedom. Negative resistance is that feeling that keeps you from straining at the bonds that hold you back. Negative resistance says, "What is the sense of trying, things never change."

Sometimes we put too much pressure on the decisions and moments in our life. You hear of an individual who hit a turning point in life or a person who had a make-or-break moment. These concepts leach into our lives, and shape our thinking about what comes next.

Let's say you decide to lose weight. You struggle with comfort eating, poor self-esteem, inexperience with exercise (which often leads to injury), poor eating habits, etc. Thus the decision to lose weight, then becomes your "make-or-brake" moment. You throw all of your hopes on this one, single, solitary, in-the-moment decision--and you expect it to bear the weight of that commitment.

And then, somebody brings donuts to work or invites you to a dinner. You go to the gym only to experience physical pain because you didn't quite know how to use that one machine, and now you need a few days to recover. Your make-or-brake moment cracks under the pressure, and you console yourself with a pint of ice cream. It seems you were destined to be fat.

The real issue isn't what you want to accomplish or even why you want to accomplish it. The real issue is that your plans are often frustrated because you place to much emphasis on the wrong things. Simply put, while there are make-or-brake moments, there are also constant opportunities to either change your course or recommit to it.

People give up too easily because they think to narrowly about big things. They want change to be instantaneous. They want to move from A to Z without ever touching on the rest of the alphabet. All of this can be applied to discipleship. There is a sense in which people fell that spiritual growth should be automatic. They think a believer should go from sinner to saint in a twinkling of an eye. This view takes our justification (the legal declaration by God that we are right with him) and confuses it with our sanctification (the process by which the Spirit brings that righteousness to bear fruit).

Whether we are at the gym working off the last five years of Christmas cookies (and other stuff) or reading our Bible for encouragement, we need to recognize that there are a thousand make-or-break decisions throughout our day. No one wrong decision can derail our progress if we are quick to repent and confess and correct course. If we put too much pressure on one moment, it will break our momentum. But if we recognize that each success will only bring us success if we keep building on it and each failure will only lead to failure if we give, then we move forward.

If you make a wrong turn in your day, make a u-turn. If things aren't going the way you planned, adjust your plan (and maybe your expectations--that's a post for another day). God has promised not to give up on you, so you aren't allowed to give up on you, either.