Dear sister,
I have a love-hate relationship with new beginnings. Whenever I try to start a new habit, I always want to start on a Monday. A new morning routine? I want to start but it’s already Tuesday! That means I have 6 more days of sleeping in. Want to read the Bible in a year but it’s the middle of July? I guess I’ll just have to wait until January. I can be fit and toned in 3 weeks? Great! Sign me up and teleport me to three weeks from today so I don’t have to experience the pain of sculpting my body into something resembling a swimsuit model. Oh, you don’t have a TARDIS? Never mind, then. (And yes, I just made a Doctor Who reference; no one is more surprised than me.)
My problem is that I want the benefit of the new habit but not the discipline or the work that comes along with it. It’s a good thing, then, that God doesn’t treat our spiritual transformations the way we often treat our physical ones. What if God said “Well, I know I’m supposed to start the hard work of softening Kayla’s heart today, but I’m just not feeling up to it. Maybe next week.”
No, thankfully God is always working in our hearts—through His word, through community with the church, through prayer, and through the sacraments. He’s not waiting for a new week, a new month, or a new year; He’s always working. He never slumbers or sleeps (Psalm 121:3-4).
But, God’s working out our new beginnings can be slow. Today, I realized that I’m still dealing with some of the same struggles that I was dealing with several years ago! One struggle is people pleasing. When I discovered this struggle in 2015, I read books on people pleasing, read verses on the fear of the Lord, and presumably prayed about my struggle (though I don’t remember with clarity). Three years later, however, I feel that I’m just as much a people pleaser as I was then. However, recently God revealed a new layer of my people pleasing heart. I realized that in my people pleasing what I’m really doing is attempting to control the responses of others. I will withhold truth, say what I think you’re expecting or wanting me to say, or stonewall you to avoid having to say anything altogether! All so that I (self-centered Kayla) do not have to deal with your response (which, in my head, is likely to be anger, rejection, or ridicule). Is that really what I’m doing? Yuck!
Thankfully, God is not impatient like we are. He knows that the “new beginning” he has blessed us with will take a lifetime to work out. He knows it’s better to reveal things to us in layers, not all at once, so we will repent, and heal, and change in layers. Just like I’m still learning about the pitfalls of people pleasing.
Sis, don’t be discouraged when you feel like you’re not making progress. Press into your struggles and see what else God may be teaching you and let your motivation to “put off the old self” (Ephesians 4:22) be renewed. Remember that God is pleased to give us new beginnings every day and He demonstrates this by calling us to a life of repentance—a life of turning away from our sinful patterns, and with the help of Christ, turning toward the way of righteousness and “putting on the new self”.
So, dear sister, don’t be like me. Don’t put off your new beginnings. Embrace them in every moment of every day for as long as we repent and believe God is willing to grant them to us.
Changing in layers,
Kayla