Hello again! It has been a while since I posted on this blog.  The break was not planned or intentional. It snuck up out of nowhere and happened.

 

We had gone through a very hectic Christmas and holiday season, I was in the midst of an extremely time-consuming project with work, our family was getting ready to go away on a trip and all of a sudden there were no more posts for the blog.

 

One missed day turned into two, and then a week, then two, and all of a sudden I realized – Hey! Wait a minute! It’s been a couple of months! What happened?

 

As I reflected on what has been happening in my life and what has been occupying my time over these past few weeks, I realized I had allowed other areas of my life to crowd out the time I had previously set aside for writing. Instead of protecting my writing time and making it a priority, I had given it away to other things which seemed more important. And then I realized, I had never claimed back the lost time for writing.

 

It is really not much different than making a commitment to work out regularly, or to read the Bible every day and then after a short time, you’re no longer doing the things you had planned to do.

 

Excuse me for a moment while I give myself a bit of a lecture. No matter what you commit to doing, if the time to do it is not carefully guarded and protected, the time will be lost and the task will not be completed.

 

Learning to say, “No”, to the things that try to steal time already allocated to a specific task is part of the process of learning self-discipline and self-control. Self-control is one of the fruits of the Spirit listed in Galations 5:22-23. Personally, I think maybe self-control is listed last because it’s the hardest.

 

So as I sat reflecting on what had happened to the blog and my writing, the one thing that became clear to me was that I needed to be much more intentional with my time and I need to be saying, “No” to the things that try to sneak into the time I set aside for writing.  The easiest way for me to do this is through prayer asking for help as I attempt to stay the course with writing and then work on being consistent day in and day out.

 

I don’t think I’m the only one who struggles sometimes with keeping up with my commitments – at least I hope I’m not the only one! If nothing else, I hope today’s post helps someone else pick themselves up and start again on a previous commitment.  Today is a new day and with a new day comes a new opportunity to start again.

 

So how about you?  Is there anything you have been neglecting in your life that needs your attention and time?  Why not join me and start again today?