Slowly but surely...

I've been raised in a Christian home, and I've been told that I asked Jesus into my heart when I was 4. I don't remember it. I spent most of my childhood trying to be good, but not really with the changed attitude that Jesus brings. I truly became a Christian when I was almost 12. And subconsciously I think I expected an immediate change. I was free from sin, right? So all I had to do was choose not to sin. That should be easy. Not.

I continued striving to do what I knew was right, read my Bible, pray and conform my entire life to what the Bible says. Then somewhere along the way, I realized that it wasn't me that was doing the work. Everything I tried to do because I knew I was supposed to failed, but God was doing good. I was trying to change my actions without changing the heart attitude that caused the actions in the first place, and God was changing my heart so that my actions were also what they were supposed to be. But He's certainly not done with me yet.

I'm not sure if it's supposed to be such a long process, but it has been with me, and I've noticed that many things that take a long time are more steady and lasting. For example, I've been staying up way too late for the past year or so, and I took a lot of that year to get used to going to bed at 12-1am. And I've tried many times to trick myself into going to bed earlier by getting up at 7 no matter how late I went to bed, and then eventually I'd be so tired that I would go to bed earlier, right? Well, it would work for a little while, usually until I got a cold (which got a foothold in my lack of sleep) and then had to get extra rest. Getting back to a good schedule will probably take about a year of consistent work. (Kind of daunting...) But if I do take a whole year, it will be easy to go to bed early, and harder to stay awake late.

So here's to slow consistency.

~Lizzie