Day 3: Refocus Your Consistency

Bible Reading: 2 Kings 13: 14-19

It probably happened to you- I think it was every one of us, that started out a new term as a school student with the ‘fresh page ginger’.

Your first page of the book was the neatest thing in the world! You would use three Colours of pens to create an unrivalled beauty: green for the date, red for the topics and blue for the notes. Your handwriting was like a typewriter!

Then as the pages began to flip, your ‘ginger’ began to drop bit by bit. There were days you would miss classes and then blank pages would show up. Other days when you would be dozing off during classes and your hand scribbling would be like a chicken.

Truth is that it was never the easiest thing in the world to start with ‘ginger’, stay ‘gingered’ and end with ‘ginger’.

Maybe that picture of your school notes is what some area of your life or the other looks like. High energy start and then inconsistency- is that the story of your relationship or marriage; or of your prayer life or quiet time; or of your job or a task on you; or is that the story of how you start each month?

I’ll encourage you not to feel discouraged. There’s a bit of a tendency for inconsistency in every one of us, but as we lean into the help of the Holy Spirit, we can do a lot more than that tendency!

As you look to the rest of this year, I hope that our Bible reading today will give you a fresh picture of what’s possible. I believe that there’s a hand of support that God has laid on us to do the things that He calls us to. You must remember when you hit the shots in whatever area of your life, that God’s hand is on me for this! I am not merely appointed to the life I live, I am anointed for it!

Again, we must be reminded that every time we stop short of going one more, we are the ones who did. There was really no restrain on us. Sometimes we take the opportunities for granted, sometimes we get way too familiar… but if you think about it, we are the ones who stopped. We could have gone on one more day, then another day; one more time, then another time.

Can you hear the voice of the Old prophet ringing in your ears? ‘Why did you stop?!’

Don’t ever underestimate what God can do with a little more consistency. Never underestimate what a little more consistency with your shots can do in a God story. Let this rest of the year represent a renewed commitment to see your God stories through. Let it be fueled by an awareness that God is telling a bigger story than the here and now.

Finally, I’ll encourage you- and I think this is where a lot of us miss it- that consistency is not a call to some human striving perfection in whatever area of your life. It is a call to depend deeply on God, not to prove a point by our striving. Consistency is a call to keep a focus on God. This is why you can still win even if you feel you’ve slipped or failed. Abraham is referred to as the ‘Father of Faith’ even though he had moments of great doubt and unbelief at different points in the story.

The bigger story of consistency is not your perfection in every moment but your dependence on God through every moment.

What structures help you do that? Do the structures in your life make you more likely to quit on a slip, or to press on irrespective?

Let’s believe for a consistent rest of the year! Like my wife would preach, ‘don’t stop those shots!’