Biblical Habits

Transcript

i've been i've been looking forward to

to talking to you tonight um because i have a topic that i particularly enjoy um and i i found it to be kind of helpful and uh enjoyable to to go through so i hope you'll find it the same

it's a little bit different i want to talk tonight about biblical habits as uncle steve mentioned

and my interest in this topic it came from reading a self-improvement book on on habits and my goal with the book you know is simply to try and learn how to change my behavior for the better right um and i had all the the standard goals in mind when i originally picked it up in early 2020 uh it was you know things like exercise and getting enough sleep and eating better and all of those and then there were also the the spiritual goals that made me pretty interested in it um like specific behaviors that i wanted to incorporate more of into my daily life and things i think that we all want more of um you know to pray more to to do our readings consistently uh listen to more spiritual music that sort of thing

and uh there's other types of behaviors i think that benefit from this topic um that are less about routine that are still great things for us to kind of focus on doing consistently um maybe your goal is to reach out to more occlusal members in isolation or

trying to praise god more throughout your day

or maybe there's

kind of character changes that you want to achieve and make more consistent for yourself

things like being slow to anger you know changing our reactions to be curious and empathetic instead of like frustrated um

you know i'd say all these are examples of habits or consistent behavior uh that we might want to try and adopt more of and so tonight yeah we're going to do something a little bit different i'm going to do a bit of a book review actually uh of this this book that i read um and then as we'll go through some of the advice i love when i read these types of books um i think it's fascinating to to connect it back to the bible and i think it's fun because um you can see that the books that really are worth their salt you'll find that the the best advice is already in the bible for you so i think that's really neat and i think there's a lot of practical stuff that i was able to take from this and then along the way we'll be able to connect it to uh the bible and some some bible characters

um so i think this is the name of the book again josh yeah so so the book that we're going to be going over tonight it's called better than before

and uh i think it's backwards on the video but um it's better than before and it's by an author who who i like reading uh named gretchen rubin

and the subtitle is what i learned about making and breaking habits to sleep more quit sugar procrastinate less and generally build a happier life

um

and so i will start off by saying i really did enjoy reading this book um i enjoy her as an author as well she writes on the type of life improvement theme and that sort of thing it's very accessible to read so i would recommend it um

and uh

i found yeah i was just able to to connect a lot of things over to to my spiritual life and and uh walk with god even though it's not a religious book per se

um so right off the bat just just to introduce it like her her goal in the book

her interest was was sparked in habits as part of a larger theme of how do people change

she was fascinated by questions such as why do some habits start like overnight like that and others you know never seem to get off the ground or why can it be easy to like form a bad habit or something that we maybe don't even enjoy but it can be hard to do something that we do enjoy or that's like good for us

and another thing that she kind of asks that i'm paraphrasing is essentially why is our spirit so willing to do something but our flesh feels so weak and unchangeable

um so her whole goal with this was to understand like what's going on under the surface and how to help make good changes for ourselves and i think i mean that's our constant goal as well

and so we we can right away see the appeal of this topic um so much of what we do is you know try to change ourselves and better emulate the ideals of christ

um and i this just before we even get into the book itself this made me think of romans 6 uh starting at verse 17 you know this is our our our daily goal it's but thanks be to god that you who are once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the teaching to which you were committed and having been set free from sin have become slaves of righteousness i'm speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations but just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity into lawlessness leading to more lawlessness so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification

and so that's i i enjoy looking at tools like this like are almost like practical how-to guides on how do we um become slaves to righteousness and how do we better like like kick out these you know bad or frustrating habits and incorporate better things um

and it's i think it's worthy to note the concepts that we're about to go over they work in two directions they help you to do good behaviors and you can also try and change negative ones [Music]

um so diving right in

the first section of the book is entirely devoted to something that um she says is the basis for for making any habit for yourself and she says that is you must understand yourself and you have to figure out how to do what works for you

so she makes the point that building good habits each one of us is very different and something that works for someone or one of you is not necessarily going to work for the rest of us and the message she wants to send is that's totally okay and it's honestly fascinating like how much we put undue pressure on ourselves i think you might say like if only i could wake up early and do this like i wish i was able to do that um i'm just not a morning person um

and we can kind of like kick ourselves because it's like uh if only we had more discipline we could do this um and she says well no like just because something seems admirable per se or correct it doesn't necessarily make it so um

this leads to to her guidance that we should like take the time to really understand ourselves so we can play to our strengths and leverage our tendencies better which i think is super smart

and so here's some of the things that she says that think about for ourselves that we can kind of like get a better sense of what will work for us the first thing is um exactly what we just said are you a lark or an owl are you a morning person or a night person

um

and some of us you know this isn't just like a like a cliche like it's an actual thing i mean some of us are just more effective in the mornings and some are better at night and so we should keep that in mind when we're trying to designate a time to do something for example like the readings if you are absolutely miserable in the morning and your brain is just not functioning in the first several hours of the day you know don't think that the best plan is to force yourself to wake up just because it seems noble um you're not going to get very much out of that

and i think what

to speak to this um this type of issue specifically uh

we'll go through our first bible character connection i think abraham has always been a really cool example of someone who who rose early in the morning

i'd say pretty distinctly he had a habit of rising early and being very proactive when he had work to do

um and we see it a few different times uh genesis 19 and verse 27 it says and abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the lord

genesis 21 14 it says so abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave it to hagar

genesis 22-3 so abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey and took two of his young men with him and his son isaac and he cut the wood for the burnt offering

and that one in particular at the end there that really stands out to me because we really see the how proactive he was in doing even the most difficult heart-wrenching tasks

he he got up early and did it

and now i just want to say i i don't think

that the lesson here is that morning people are holier than night owls i i wouldn't take that away from this um but i think there's definitely a lesson in uh you know having that discipline not wasting any time being very diligent um but definitely identify you know which works better for you

um

and the next area of self-knowledge that she focuses on is are you a marathoner a sprinter or a procrastinator and so this refers to the pace of how you like to do things [Music]

so a marathoner as she puts it is you prefer consistent slower steady paces and you're not a fan of deadlines really so you're trying to avoid that stress at all costs and you spread spread things out um

compare that to the sprinter which prefers very short bursts of of action at a time

and are very compelled to act by by a looming deadline and then the difference between a sprinter and a procrastinator is procrastinators uh fall into tons of stress because they also were right before the deadline um but sprinters chose to be there and they were more intentional and planned and procrastinators are kind of a victim of of uh things falling through the cracks uh and her advice is um if you do find yourself in the procrastinator category um just give yourself a break and try and be more intentional and calculated uh to save you from from the stress and the blame that you might put on yourself um but either way if you are someone who really likes to work on something like far in advance um or if you're someone who likes needs a little bit more pressure both are totally reasonable um just you know figure out which one's better for you

um and i couldn't think of a lot of bible verses about this this difference specifically um but there's definitely a theme of being diligent in our work that i think stands out um and we certainly you know we want to be keeping our commitments and doing what we can however is best to our strengths um

to kind of stay on top of things and to work heartily and such and so my conclusion just from from this section is um know your know your tendency uh try and leverage it you know when thinking about a collegial projects daily tasks personal changes um

figure out the best path

and then the third part of like the self-reflection bit in the book that i want to focus on um

which i think is uh pretty interesting is she talks about being promotion focused or prevention focused

and she says people are motivated by different things so for example you could say i'd want to get more sleep

or you could say i want to stop staying up too late

you know you could say i want to pray more often or i want to stop forgetting to pray

be a better listener or stop jumping to conclusions whatever the case may be like both are actually the same thing they're just presented slightly differently for you and so what her advice is is to frame things in a way in your mind that you respond to better um are you more goal oriented like do this or do you respond better to kind of a sense of duty almost you know stop doing this

um and this was interesting to think about in the context of of the bible because we see both types of instruction all throughout um the ten commandments are mostly commands to stop doing things um you know thou shalt not x um but not exclusively uh and then additionally it seems like throughout the bible which is which is kind of neat uh there is this flow from responsibility with the law to in the new testament with letters in christ teachings um much more of like a goal and stated ideals that we want to shoot for um

you know throughout the the new testament we have like like traits that are desirable that we should adopt and there's certainly a mix of both like you know don't do this and do this things

but

i think the takeaway here is to

definitely consider both types of instruction for yourself but also like figure out maybe which

encourages you better

certainly be aware of of which which that you respond to for your mental framing

i think it can be a little problematic to only focus on an obligation style which is like you know don't do this this and this um but at the same time some clear guidelines for behavior like that you know i'm not going to do this um can help to balance out our our goals that we hold in our head

um

so

just uh well i just want to pause for a second um that's that's kind of the bit on like self-reflection and kind of like bringing our own style to uh to changing our behavior um i'm really i'd love for tonight to be a bit of a back and forth and i'm sure people have have some tips and also can draw back to verses or bible characters and i can't even begin to scratch the surface of bible characters with habits so now that we've talked about kind of the knowing ourselves bit uh and playing to our strengths i want to look at some of what she calls the pillars of building habits and actually changing our behavior in a direction that we want

um i think there's some really cool stuff in here uh so the first pillar that that gretchen advocates for is monitoring your behavior and being self-aware of your behavior both before and after you decide to make the change and incorporate something so for example if we're talking about doing the readings

and your goal is to do them every day of the week you might want to keep track of how many days a week you're actually you've actually been doing them and you're actually getting them done and this will allow you to both see where you're at in terms of your goal and it can also say like help you to see okay i never get my readings done on tuesdays so why and then that will help you catch what is preventing you from actually establishing your habit

and it's a very simple thing but i think it can be often overlooked um

you know if you're working on a goal such as praying or studying or something else something you know just pretty simple and tangible keep track of your patterns you know notice how you're doing jot it down do do what works for you

this self-awareness is really huge to being able to make the changes that you want

and then tied in with this is she says it's very important here to be specific with your goals if you can be so if your goal is just to read the bible more i'm going to kind of keep leaning on on that but again apply this to whatever you'd like to to add into your life if your goals read the bible more

or care more about people in myoclesia kind of vague change that to something tangible and a little bit more measurable so you can actually monitor it and like see how you're doing

so maybe change it to do my readings every day of the week or on sunday morning ask two people how they're doing and and you know check in with them like set like almost a goal for yourself and that doesn't have to limit you um but it helps give you a sense of kind of where you're at and where you want to be it helps us monitor ourselves

um

and to look to the bible on this uh pulling principles from from slightly different uh contexts the idea of self-awareness and self-reflection is uh is really huge to our faith walk and in our ability to control our own behavior um

this one this one was neat it's this i'm going to read from galatians 6 starting at verse 3. it says for if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing he deceives himself but let each one test his own work and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor for each will have to bear his own load

so in this verse we have this idea of um being honest with yourself and your behavior um and it can be really hard to be objective and discerning of yourself and that's also something that we see in the bible right there's this idea of having the log in your own eye but the speck in your brother's eye

and so this is where if we bring in some self-monitoring and like kind of keeping track uh and reflecting it can help us to actually see ourselves more clearly and actually more objectively see where our actions stand um because it's no longer you know i feel like i'm pretty good at this or i don't think i'm very good but i really don't actually know

if we're able to pay closer attention it'll help us to really identify like properly how we can improve

um another verse that i thought was relevant is first timothy 4 and verse 16 and that says keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching persist in this for by doing so you will save both yourself and your hearers

and so this verse is in the context of service in the ecclesia and again there's this theme watching ourselves and and not being blind to our actions our character which is important

and then uh the last one i'd like to focus on here is romans 12 and verse three

and that says for by the grace given to me i say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think but to think with sober judgment each according to the measure of faith that god has assigned

now obviously like context this isn't specifically talking about like uh you know exercising 30 minutes a day every week this is more a character reflection but but again we have this idea here which i think can be applied of of sober judgment

and and true objective self-honesty because this verse talks about you know don't just like inflate yourself you know higher than you ought to think like be be humble and be real with yourself and i would also say this works the other way don't overly um throw guilt and shame on yourself when maybe it's not actually totally warranted in the sense that uh that can really be discouraging so if there's something you're really trying to work on in your life be it a character trait or um you know a consistent habit of prayer

the the monitoring can really help us to again properly self-reflect uh which which is a really good part of of changing our behavior

so that's monitoring and then the next thing that um

the author talks about in this book

is she pushes for the strategy of scheduling

so simply put setting a specific regular time for an activity um put it on the calendar you know make time for the thing that you want to do

and so you might say okay like you could be skeptical and say all right this one's kind of obvious uh it you know great uh you'll have a reminder to do the thing that you want to do um yes but i would i would argue that it it actually goes a little further than this

by designating a specific time for your habit or behavior you are confronting the natural limits of the day

and what i mean by that is it can be so easy to say i'll do the readings at some point today or tomorrow or i'll give brother and sister so and so a call at some point today

but like when are you gonna do that

um because the problem is many of us are quite busy or just distracted for our entire day

like is there really a moment in your day where you're sitting there so bored with nothing to do that you then think what would be productive for me to do i actually bet not we're really good as particularly these days at filling our time there's no shortage of things that can can fill our day

and another default with this is it's easy to vaguely say something like i'll do the readings in the evening after i'm done with everything else for the day

you say okay well that's a time frame it's definitely a step in the right direction but even with that you got to be careful because that's also when you do the dishes that you've been putting off and you talk to your family who's all just come home for the day and you give your brain a rest and you unwind because you're tired

which is important and honestly unavoidable

and so the point that i'm trying to make here with all of this is uh that it's really helpful to be specific and intentional with some of these habits and this is the same point that um gretchen makes in the book um it can help us reckon with the fact that we only have like so much time in the day to work with

and um this can be done however works best for you do you have a calendar or planner that you use great uh set reminders on your phone that'll ping you when you think is best to do it awesome um designating that you're gonna do it after breakfast and before running errands for the day sure like whatever you think will will help you to really fit it into your schedule so it won't just be eaten by something else that you have to do

that's kind of a simple thing but really make the time there

and this one has me excited because there's an awesome biblical example that demonstrates scheduling that we can point to uh and if if i had like started off by saying think of a bible character who who had a very clearly defined like habit and routine

i guess your mind would go to daniel that's that's where my mind went anyway

um and this is this is a cool one so i'll just read daniel 6 and verse 10. and the context for this here is that

the decree has just been made in babylon that you can't pray to anyone except king darius for 30 days

and so daniel 6 and verse 10 it says when daniel knew that the document had been signed he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward jerusalem and he got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his god as he had done previously

so this is a really cool thing

to read because we have some insight into daniel's daily routine in his actions which we don't always get with bible characters we don't actually know what some of the more like mundane moments or like standard things really looked like um but here it tells us like plainly that daniel was he was so clearly intentional and scheduled with his prayer that he seemed to have this definitive routine that he stuck to and so this may have been a morning noon and night prayer schedule or some other combination that worked for him and like fit into his responsibilities you know is his rulership

job

and

what's cool about that is

because daniel had designated this time and he had scheduled it in and it was it likely had become very automatic for him and what gretchen pushes in this book is that this is actually the goal is your goal is to take as much energy and willpower out of the equation of the thing that you want to do because daniel he had already chosen long ago that this is when he's going to pray he didn't have to actually spend the energy to choose that he just went and did it and so that if if we can create that dynamic for ourselves where it's just a part of our day it's just something we do and we'll do it i think that's an awesome thing to fall into and that's how things become automatic and daniel really held that um in high regard for himself so much so that even when he's facing uh death he's not going to break from his habit and his routine

and uh

this made me think okay

daniel he's great he's got his schedule in his routine awesome uh however this isn't always easy or even possible to do uh some of us we may find ourselves with schedules that are completely all over the place like it seems like one day does not resemble the last and things vary week to week and if this describes you or or ever has it certainly has for me in college

you'll know that it's difficult to actually make anything stick

people will say it's hard to eat healthy or exercise or do readings or hold any habit when you're traveling because your routine is out the window like all these all your kind of normal cues are gone

and um

your routine's just broken

and we also have an awesome example of someone who stayed consistent in these circumstances in the bible which i think is super neat and that is our lord jesus

um i think it's a bit of an understatement to say that christ's schedule varied throughout his ministry uh i think he had the exact opposite of a routine he had one of the most dynamic and changing um three years of of most people always on the road always doing different things being confronted with different people on no sort of consistent schedule i would bet that's really what it looked like

however he still consistently prayed and i mean of course like jesus was consistent in prayer but it's still worth mentioning it's it's very notable and very um clearly marked in scripture just how often he's able to go off and pray even with his like

just so much like kind of going on around him that he's involved in

uh and as soon as i started noticing these i couldn't stop because it really is all throughout the gospels uh mark 1 35 says in the early morning while it was still dark jesus got up left the house and went away to a secluded place and he was praying there

mark 6 46 after bidding them farewell he left for the mountain to pray

luke 5 16 but jesus himself would often there's the habit slip away to the wilderness and pray

luke 6 12 it was at this time that he went off to the mountain to pray and he spent the whole night in prayer to god

and that was just four verses four instances of this barely scratches the surface

and so his his prayers were not necessarily based on on

time per se for him i can't really speak to how we can emulate this under you know under such crazy circumstances other than uh it had to have become um an instinct it had to become just so ingrained that this is something that he needed that he's he's weary he's worn out he needs to go and deliberate with god and and um you know make his appeal and and show praise and and recharge

so i really think that is of course christ is always going to be the highest ideal that we can we can have in the bible uh and we can if we're if we're intentional um and really build it into our lives and start having prayer as just as as needed as as eating and drinking we can also have this kind of instinct for we just something doesn't feel right unless i go and pray right now

so i think that was a pretty special thing

and then um we're we're nearing the end here but the the final pillar of habits that i want to draw out and i should say uh we're i'm just picking out little pieces from this book uh there's there's much more in here um but the final pillar that i want to look at that i think is super relevant to us is accountability

and right off the bat as soon as i say accountability i mean i think you can see the biblical connection but she actually has a lot of interesting things to say so let's dive into it so she presents accountability as the other half of the scheduling bit you know this is how we make sure that we actually follow through with what's on the calendar because that's the thing just like having having the time it doesn't always mean that we're immediately going to do it and so that's where this comes in so she says i mean rightly we behave differently when someone is watching

deadlines keep us working late fees make us pay the bills on time

a sea of turned heads make us try to avoid walking meeting late

been there this is actually um this is one of the appeals of things like personal trainers or other coaches or such in any form what you're paying for really is accountability

which can be really helpful and motivating

uh another way that people find accountability for something that they want to do is they'll say it publicly

if i declare to you right now that my goal is to do 500 push-ups every day for the next year uh your first question next time would be um how is that ridiculous goal going you know and i just have to hang my head in shame because it's not going to happen

um

and so so there's that route um and you may have even seen that i feel like uh that's something people do during excitations sometimes um which i think is kind of a neat neat concept holding each other accountable to our uh to your holoclesia

um

and then the other form of this that i want to focus on is the idea of you you have something that you want to incorporate in your life you have something that you want to be consistent about so you find an accountability partner you know like a designated person um you know you'll say to a friend i'd really like to do 30 minutes of my study every day can you keep me accountable

and this is interesting because this is i think a pretty common thing i'm sure the majority of you have like been in agreements like this i certainly have um but gretchen has some tips for this because she says being an accountability partner it can be pretty tricky and it's actually a fair amount of work

so some care should definitely be put into that dynamic like if that's the agreement you want to set up and i think she's totally right about that um

one other thing she said that i thought was profound is i don't want people to dread contact with me because i make them feel guilty about some broken habit

and that's like a very real thing

um and so i think that's one of the reasons that we should demonstrate that this is actually it's not a it's not a simple ask for someone to be that for you um so there's definitely like some defining of terms and and some like finding really the right right balance to actually make that uh effective and healthy i guess

and so her recommendations for this for accountability partners uh they're pretty interesting she says accountability partners often work better if they aren't particularly close

or if the accountability is mutual

or blast if a person is paid to hold someone accountable

and then tied in with that like paid professional thing she references another author which says there's a choice that we have when choosing someone between a peer or a pro

and the author says prose work better people don't take peers seriously and peers aren't going to tell you the hard truths you need a pro

now that really got me thinking because that that's really interesting to think about in the context of a collegial life um like first things first i can't imagine any context where you pay someone for the service of accountability so that's kind of out um but i think we can kind of replace pro in this advice with uh like mentor

and i think particularly for like young people like myself we can look to um

older brothers and sisters that we have a relationship with that's maybe not like the peer dynamic um and we can look to them if we have that kind of relationship to uh to provide that sort of accountability for whatever it is that uh we're trying to do um i can think of plenty of uh brothers and sisters in my ecclesia that would have no qualms about telling me the hard truth of uh my my failure to

to stay up to uh to par on what i'm doing um whereas it's harder when you're friends

um

you know and obviously this type of relationship and balance this isn't easy um asking someone to keep you accountable requires a fair amount of vulnerability no matter what it is even if it's as simple as doing your readings every day i mean you are you have to have a lot of trust to have someone check in with you because you may have to tell them you know i i haven't done them the last five days you know and that's not an easy thing and so finding someone who you can have those honest conversations with uh is is huge and the other wrinkle that i want to mention here regarding

gretchen's advice uh is again do what works for you in this case

we all respond very differently to accountability and it is certainly not one size fits all some people absolutely resent it and it's like demoralizing and and not a healthy thing and honestly fair enough like figure that out for yourself right others might prefer um like group accountability like a readings group or or something like that um

another aspect to this that i thought was really worth mentioning and honestly probably pretty common in our community is uh mutual accountability and i think that's very accessible for us you you find someone in this case it can absolutely be you know a friend

who has a mutual goal to you and you try and work together to build it into your lives and i'd argue we do that all the time as brothers and sisters and that's a really like special thing uh which is cool

and so going to the bible on this um the bible is filled with these ideas of mutual encouragement confession

um i found like tons and tons of verses

about this idea mutual encouragement confession working together relying on one another i mean these are some of like fundamental biblical concepts um so i love like again backing up the advice that we can get you know it's right here in the bible for us and we can really take a lesson from it um

james 5 and verse 16 says therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working

and so there's that element of um really being honest and vulnerable uh with with our brothers and sisters in an effort to ultimately um improve and uh be better um

another very simple one you know it's we quote it all the time but nonetheless it had so powerful proverbs 27 17 iron sharpens iron and one man sharpens another this is kind of an example of that like mutual accountability for maybe what you might be working on um

part of this is you know you have to count on one another to be objective and and be direct and and not to hold back and so to actually truly be iron to each other that that's actually a big call to us because we both have to um show a lot of love and also be very humble to be refined and sharpened as this verse calls us for

luke 17 and verse 3 it says

pay attention to yourselves if your brother sins rebuke him and if he repents forgive him

and that is it's so much easier said than done for sure i mean to to truly rebuke someone it has to be based in so much love and so much care and to really receive that instruction which we're commanded to do

we have to we have to be humble and we have to

um be slow to speak and try and just listen and

you know be full of reflection in these moments

because it is hard to be be corrected and in the context of if you are if you're asking for it specifically it can be easier but particularly if uh you don't necessarily want the accountability or you're not expecting the accountability that's when it's so challenging and we really have to be patient and um

get just humble in those moments

um

and then finally another verse that i found that i really like in this context is galatians 6 and verse 2 and it says bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of christ and that's such a positive thing and that just speaks to to how uplifting and helpful it is to um

be be kind of shoulder to shoulder and arm and arm with each other as we try and make improvements in our lives and in ourselves

um you know we we really are we're commanded it's it's not purely a suggestion but we're commanded to seek each other out and correct and help each other and admonish each other um

and work on our behavior and our actions and you know i'd say that we're very smart to lean on each other to help set good habits for ourselves um you know just like just like it says in this book here

um so to summarize uh the thoughts from tonight

i know it can be really difficult to implement the things that you want to in your life like i i've completely been there um

it can feel impossible at times like you you know the good that you you want to do you really would like to do this or or act this way or just just add this into your life but it's it's hard and it never seems to work and it never seems to stick

but it really is absolutely possible and the answer may be in trying different methods rather than just being down on yourself and shaming yourself about your lack of discipline you know do your best to figure out what works for you and plays to your strengths

your goal is to make it as easy for yourself as possible to start automatically incorporating your habits into your life

and this will help you stop being so frustrated that you can't ever get something to stick

and so as we talked about some of the ways you can you can actually go about this is you know identify what it is that you'd like to do

whatever that might be in your life

and then you can use the ideas of of monitoring of scheduling of finding some sort of accountability to check in as you work um these will help you make those changes that have seemed elusive and then finally just want to make the point um

you know always always do these things prayerfully even if they seem mundane

we're told in scripture that you know god will will bless our efforts if we really are trying to to put in the work and seek him and we can count on that um

it may seem really hard and daunting and we can kind of get overwhelmed by the idea of you know how can i actually really always have the the energy to to do this or to live this way um but i promise like if if you're able to just kind of maneuver it for yourself and and

and give it your best effort like god will bless that

and that's everything i wanted to