Got all cleaned up? Now where are you going?
We people are sort of like the proverbial pig. We tidy up our lives and then head back to the same places that got us dirty in the first place.
Ugh.
How can we prevent that? Old habits are hard to break, right?
After taking months to lose ten pounds, I gained them back in a matter of weeks. I returned to old habits.
I made a promise to study the Scripture every day last January. That lasted a week.
When the Christmas holidays ended, I vowed to exercise every day in 2017. I did that for a week or two, now I'm back to walking two or three days a week.
How long does it take to change a habit? Back in the old days, the 1960's, a physician named Maxwell Maltz claimed to change took twenty-one days.
Ha! I've dieted twenty-one days and then returned to my regular eating habits.
A new study indicates an average of 66 days. How do you like that number? Most Bible students avoid the number 66.
The point is this: To change requires a lifetime life of committed transformation.
Hard to do, isn't it?
Those Bible authors, such as the Apostle Paul, made change look easy. After his Damascas Road experience, he was altered forever and never made it back to the pigpen.
Alas, I'm not him.
Are you self disciplined? Is change easy for you? If so, I applaud you.
In our defense, people like me that is, if we'd had the same encounter as Paul on that road to persecute Christians, maybe we'd be fully committed too.
On the other hand, our relationship with Jesus should be just as vital and real as Saul's was who became the changed Paul.
Oh well, I'm gonna try to stay out of the mud, slime and filth today. How about you?
In This book, Georgia's husband is a clueless, hostile, abusive man. He changes, but does it last? If I write a sequel, should he stay changed or go back to the pigpen? What happens in real life to marriages where one spouse promises to change? I prefer fiction. I can make my characters mentally healthy if I want to.
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