Little Seeds, Big Clouds and a Clock About to Strike

Habits. Good habits. Bad habits. You need discipline to create good habits and discipline to destroy bad habits. 

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

Discipline. How do you get it? Some people seem to be born with it. Others struggle to maintain it. And still others don’t much care one way or the other. Me?  It depends on the situation. Sometimes, I really just want to see if I can achieve a goal and discipline comes naturally. Other times, I just can’t seem to create that same sense of excitement and my discipline has heads for the hills on a long vacation. 

At the beginning of this year, January 1st to be exact, I decided to do a challenge. A 75 Day Challenge. 

THE 75 DAY CHALLENGE 

Morning Cardio workout

Afternoon strength workout 

Eat 850 calories

Drink 4 litres of water

Read 10 pages of a non fiction book

Every. Day. For a total of 75 days. 

Now I know what you’re thinking. ‘Are you insane?!’ Yes. Well, probably. But all the best people are, aren’t they?

When I heard about the challenge, at first I thought, ‘HA! Yeah right. I wouldn’t last a week!’ I’ve been suffering from a sore lower back for a good year now and thought I’d maybe get through the first three days before pulling my back out again. Then I’d be in bed for a week and back to the Physio. But what if I focused on exercises that didn’t use my back and supported it as much as possible? Was I really going to let my fear of failing and getting hurt get the better of me?

My fear. How many times has it beat me down? It doesn’t feel like that at the time, does it? It keeps me safe. I mean, I don’t want to get hurt and I don’t want to fail.  But what if I succeed, then what do I do? It’s the unknown that my fear keeps me safe from. It’s nice. It’s comforting, but all those big ideas, all the story outlines I jot down for when I have time to come back to them … they just wait. They gather dust. So what my fear has done, is kept me stationary. Never growing, never evolving into something more than what I am. 

So, what’s the point?

I sat down with a lovely couple about a month ago and we were discussing the current issues - the pandemic, emergency mandates, talks of war. We moved to Revelation and how everything looked pretty grim. They said they believed we had maybe another ten years left before the Rapture.

‘Excuse me? I don’t think I heard you correctly. Did you say ten years?’

I hadn’t misheard. Now, don’t get me wrong. No one knows when it’ll happen, but just think about it for a moment. Ten years. That’s all you have left. One hundred and twenty months. Five hundred and twenty weeks. Three thousand, six hundred and fifty days. Eighty seven thousand, six hundred hours. And so on, and so on. But you get it. Ten years left of your life.

Photo by Anne Nygård on Unsplash

I don’t know about you, but should I even be bothering to do a Bachelor Degree that will take me six years to complete part time? And all those story ideas I have, do I just give up on them? It has taken me over a decade to write the story for one of my ideas, what do I do with the other thirty two I have outlined on my computer? All the other things I wanted to do, wanted to see … I don’t know, but ten years doesn’t seem like enough time, especially when procrastination and anxiety are such good friends of mine.

I just don’t know … but then again, I think I do.

It starts with a little seed.

Without a little water, a little dirt, a bit of sunshine, little seeds won’t grow. But if you put in a little effort and don’t mind getting your hands dirty, that seed will sprout roots and habits will grow. 

First things first. Show up. Nothing ever gets done if you don’t first begin. This builds habits. Things you can improve upon. You cannot improve if you don’t have a foundation.

Those big clouds you see in the sky above you. The ones you’ve imagined into dragons and castles and mushroom houses; they are your spark. They are the reason you want to write their stories. Don’t let fear stop you. Don’t let your doubts get the better of you. They are your past, not your present you. You woke up this morning as a blank canvas. Don’t let the negativity of yesterday paint the opportunities of today.

Today is day zero of my 75 Day Challenge. For the most part, I accomplished a lot. I will admit, the ten pages became a little too overwhelming - exhaustion and a heavy non fiction book do not mix well - and I didn’t continue with this aspect of the challenge. But I’ve now built up a few good habits and who knows what the next seventy five days bring. Even if the clock is about to chime - today, tomorrow, one year form now, ten years, twenty … I have an opportunity to learn more, see more, do more and it doesn’t matter how much I accomplish,  as long as I show up in the moments that matter and know God has everything in control.

Kirsten Hart (aka A.T. Richmond) is a born and bred Territorian who moved to Queensland and had no choice but to stay after her assimilation into the Toowoomba's infamous, collective known as Quirky Quills. Since then, A.T. Richmond has had two stories published. Stone Bearer, appears in Glimpses of Light and Tedious Tresses, in the As Time Goes By Mixed Blessings anthology. She is currently writing a fantasy trilogy.

The "Kudzu" of our Minds

Isn't it wonderful when things just link together nicely?! In the post before this one, Melinda Jensen raised the issue of sex in Christian fiction and very bravely and beautifully looked at the interaction between the words we read and our minds. 

And wouldn't you know it, the very thing that I was led to talk on in this post was our minds.

Some of you may have heard of a plant called "Kudzu?" For those who haven't, here's the Wikipedia description of it,

They are climbing, coiling, and trailing perennial vines ... Where these plants are naturalized, they can be invasive and are considered noxious weeds. The plant climbs over trees or shrubs and grows so rapidly that it kills them by heavy shading.[3] The plant is edible, but often sprayed with herbicides.[3]

If you have a moment, I recommend you go and google Kudzu, to see for yourself the insidious nature of the plant.

The imagery is quite frightening; vast expanses of land, huge trees, even entire houses, completely smothered by the ivy-like vines. 

This plant was introduced in the late 1800s as a good thing; an ornamental plant that could be used for land management, food for stock and even basket making, among other things. But, left unchecked, it rages out of control, and takes over everything in its path. 

As I read about the Kudzu and gazed on the images, something within my spirit was quickened; immediately I thought of our minds, and how quickly thoughts can be planted, and in no time at all completely smother our minds, our thinking, our ability to think rationally or with clarity.

Now I must point out, I'm not actually talking about sex...although yes,that is one very obvious one that can take hold, (and why I do agree that it should be very carefully handled in Christian fiction, if indeed included at all...again, I refer you to the discussion in the previous blog). But there are so many different thoughts or patterns that can be rooted in our minds, and some of them are actually good to begin with. It is when we start to let those thoughts or patterns take control of our mind that they lose their beauty or usefulness, and become noxious, robbing us of so many other good things. 

So what are some examples of these noxious mind-weeds? Here are three examples that I came up with:

• Particularity - it's great to aim for a high standard in life; the Bible says we should do everything as if it was asked by God directly. But when particularity is allowed to grow into excessive proportions, our sense of peace can be completely overshadowed as it grows into the noxious weed of Perfectionism. Instead of pleasing God, the source of our inspiration, we start seeking other people's approval, perhaps out of fear of not being good enough, or perhaps out of a driving need to be the very best compared to others.

• Pride - being proud of one's achievements is a good thing! We should be cheering ourselves on, sometimes louder than anyone else! But, if we allow our thoughts of self to get too big for their britches, pride can become a smothering Arrogance. We begin to do what we do for the accolades of others, perhaps because that is where we receive our self-worth. These thoughts will soon smother any sense of humility, and can be our undoing.
  

• Prudence - being cautious and careful is an honorable quality, and shows wisdom. What happens though, when we begin to feel overly cautious? Or we become so well-planned that we are unable to allow room for spontaneity or, dare I say it, a Holy Spirit prompting to do something contrary to our plans?! If the seed of prudence is planted and allowed to grow without constraint in our minds, it becomes Rigidity. This is possibly the most dangerous of the three things listed here, as it can completely obscure our purpose, our passion and our fervor for life, and for God.

I could list many noxious weeds that have, by the love and grace of Jesus Christ, been uprooted from my own mind; I have many to still be removed. It's not easy; sometimes it's painful, even a little shameful. But oh, the freedom that I have experienced as I allow the Holy Spirit to convict and then get to work!

And my sincere prayer, as I write this blog, is that someone reading this will be gently, compassionately, lovingly convicted, so they, too, would allow our loving and glorious Father to start digging up the Kudzu of their mind, that they might be all they were created to be!

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Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. Romans 12:2 NLT