Every decision to enforce our personal disciplines on ourselves is as essential as drinking in God's clear Living Water, eating God's Holy Manna (Bread of Life); wearing The Lord Jesus Christ, resting in Jesus, and living under God's covenant of Grace. He is our food and drink, our clothing, our peace, our roof above us.
Starting a new routine, changing up the old one, only takes one step. And then another. And then another; until it becomes habit, routine. But all it takes is that first decision to make a change in our lives, lifestyles. And then our second step is to follow through on that decision.
We can decide to change our weight, but until we put forth an effort to see it change, it won't. We can decide to quit our addictions, but until we make a conscious effort to stop, we will keep right on doing them.
But, before we can do anything, we must turn to God and see what He has to say on our decisions to change. Have you not noticed that the older we get the harder it is to leave our safety net, our comfort zone? We like it here. Or at least we have convinced ourselves that we do. But is our comfort more important than God's will for our lives? No.
All of the commands, the wills, the desires which God has for us require action on our parts before God can move in our lives. God's will is alive, powerful, able to change, to divide and to multiply, to add and subtract. Following through on our decision to live our lives according to His will for us requires daily maintenance and upkeep in His Word.
We strive within ourselves to maintain our youthfulness, our mobility, our own happiness. We should be pursuing what makes God happy, striving against the pressures of the enemy who desires our souls instead of fighting time and gravity to remain upright and less wobbly. Even though those things are important, they do not have more priority than what God wants for us.
The applied Word of God to these struggles and strivings has more power to change us than anything we can do in ourselves. I have a friend who had difficulty losing weight so she could be healthier: she prayed it off. Because of her faithfulness to God's service and her heart for the love of God, God answered her prayer.
I have another friend whom all her doctors said would never walk or talk or even live above a certain age: she is 15 this year. She walks, she talks, she learns. She is smart and funny and sweet and autistic; and I love her. God answers the prayers of the righteous.
It isn't going to be easy, but you know what? It isn't supposed to be easy being a follower of Christ, a lover of God's Word, a soldier in the army of The Lord. Anything worth having is worth working for.
