There’s an old saying that goes like this: “You can’t eat an elephant all in one bite, but you could eat an elephant one bite at a time.”
In other words, it’s the small consistent choices that we make over a long period of time that can have a tremendous impact on our lives and on this world in which we live. When we begin to think about areas in our life that need to change, or we need to grow, it can seem OVERWHELMING. It can seem like trying to eat an elephant. But how you eat an elephant is one bite at a time and the way we become the person God has called us to be is ONE CHOICE at a time.
This is when people talk about New Year’s resolutions. But statistically New Year’s resolutions don’t work. 60% abandon them within six months. The average person makes the same resolution ten times without success. The problem isn’t our intention or our desire. The problem is the HOW. We don’t know how to eat the elephant.
The answer is simply this: Change is the product of my routines, not my resolutions.
The key is the routines you adopt. Somebody said, “Resolutions without routines are like Ferrari’s without fuel. They are very impressive but they won’t get you very far.”
If we want to change our lives, it’s not about the resolutions we make.
It’s about small consistent choices and the routines we adopt every day. Because a resolution can never overcome what a routine creates. We live in a world where we expect everything to happen quickly and easily. Change is a process.
If you take an acorn and throw it against a slab of concrete, the concrete would be completely unaffected and the acorn would be completely smashed. But if you would take that acorn and plant it in the ground and water it and give it sunshine and nutrients, eventually that acorn will destroy the concrete.
There’s a cumulative value that comes from investing time in certain activities over a long time—your health, your family, your faith, your finances. The flip side is there’s a cumulative impact that comes from neglecting certain activities over a long time. We know these are true.
One more statement: “There’s no immediate benefit to any single investment of time.”
We, like most people, want the miraculous—instant results. It’s only when you embrace the monotonous that you get to see the miraculous. If you resist the monotonous, you will miss the miraculous.
“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” — Galatians 6:9
Until next month,
Keith Chandler Pastor Journey Christian Church
www.tampajourney.com 7708 Van Dyke Rd, Odessa. FL.
813-920-0442 Sunday service 10:am