Nailed it!

A couple of weeks ago, I posted about my attempt to get back in the habit of reading the scriptures daily. Today, I am happy to report that I successfully completed the 21 days prescribed by those in the medical profession to set up a habit!

I actually had an experience yesterday that helped me see what was going on pretty clearly. Yesterday was day 21, the last day people say is required to complete a habit. And the best part was I had made it the whole way through without any failures at all! I hadn't missed a single day of the 21! So all I had to do was finish this 21st day, and I would be on my way to reading the scriptures every single day for the rest of my life (I hope).

However, yesterday was crazy! Ed had called me the night before and had asked if I wanted to go duck hunting with him in the morning. I know how much fun Ed has with it, and I liked the idea of getting out in nature, so I thought I'd go too. I felt lied to though when Ed said we'd be leaving at 5 am. That's not morning...that's something else...

If Ed wanted to leave at 5, that meant I would be waking up at 4:55 at the very earliest. I wanted to suck the marrow right off my sleep time. But, this created the problem of not being able to do my devotions in the morning. I was concerned, but figured I could get caught up when we got home around lunch time.

I had to go and throw a wrench in that plan too, but bagging my first duck!

Actually, it was quite cool, and I'm planning another blog post about that sometime soon. But, it did mean that we added some extra time to our day, because I don't like the idea of hunting purely for sport, I want to use this guy for food! So we had to take him home, clean him, butcher him (this makes it sound cooler than it was, he had maybe a nugget and a half of meat on him. Not a very big duck), and prepare the meat to be frozen. By the time all of this was accomplished, it was time to take the high schoolers to chick fil a. Then it was time for the rummage sale. Then it was time for Ed and Elise to come over.

I did indeed do my devos at night, and accomplished my goal. But I actually think the goal was accomplished a while before then. The whole day, I couldn't shake the thoughts I was having about being in the word. I kept looking for little pockets of time to sneak away with my bible and a pen, maybe just to chip away at it piece at a time. I think at one point I was even twitching. At this point, I think I'm pretty securely in the habit of reading the word.

For those of you out there for whom this isn't a regular practice, please let me encourage you to do so. Not with some sort of guilt trip speech, like "God loves you more if you're in the word!" But let me just tell you that in my life, it's made a tremendous difference. I feel a bit more aware of God in my day to day coming and going. I feel like I understand his message to us a little bit more than I did three weeks ago (Please, under no circumstances are you to think I understand his message completely. Just a little better...). If this isn't a habit for you, I encourage you to take 21 days to get there. You won't regret it.

And oh by the way, it doesn't stop there. I just finished day 22, and I have every reason to believe that I'm going to make it to day 23!

Godspeed,

Jason