Why Being Motivated to Change isn't Always Enough
Very often, the desire to change starts with a highly motivated and exuberant:
Whether the starting question is about losing weight, finances, smoking, sin, or drawing closer to God. That big YES might resonate in an echo chamber for weeks or months, helping us stick to a plan.
But changing or stopping a habit or sin that we have had for a long time doesn’t happen because of a single declaration or resolution, nor does adding a new habit. The motivations for how we have been in the past haven’t gone away. They are just harder to hear during that honeymoon period. As time goes on, that fired up motivation gets worn down by how often you have to remain committed.
For instance, if you want to quit smoking, then you will need to say yes to change and no to smoking each time you feel the urge to light up. Many people smoke 10 times a day. If that is you, then the first month of quitting you might face the question/urge 280 times. Each time you face it; the new motivation might grow a little softer and the old urge/motivation might get a little louder.
Failure happens so often because when we are motivated more than one way, there is never a guarantee we will do the right thing. You can recognize the different motivations because they are the competing voices when you are tempted to do something you shouldn’t or tempted not to do something you should. It can feel like a debate going on in your head.
The motivational voices we hear can come from:
Our desire to change or our stubborn nature, which can also be in the form of feelings
Satan’s clever marketing scheme that promotes instant and consequence-free gratification
Other people that can be helpful or hurtful
Directly from the enemy
The Holy Spirit, which is often a still small voice
This is one reason the Bible tells us to take every thought captive so that we can learn to recognize the voices that lead us incorrectly. Imagine sitting in a room during a debate and it is revealed that one speaker is your enemy. The hope is that no matter how eloquently and persuasively they speak, you recognize it as lies.
Motivation gets you started; Discipline keeps you going.
I have seen variations of the above quote. For some smaller habit changes, discipline may be enough. Discipline or willpower pre-decides the outcome of every future internal debate on the issue.
In the Bible, discipline might look like a covenant, like the one that Job had with his eyes (Job 31:1). It might also look like an attitude like we see in Matthew 5:29-30 that teaches us to have a ruthless rejection of sin. It is also called steadfastness (1 Corinthians 15:58).
The problem with discipline is that you do not have an unlimited supply. You can be worn down by fighting other internal battles, like censoring yourself if your boss is being unkind, by outside influences, or by stress, weariness, and illness. We see a good example of this in Judges 16 when Delilah is pressuring Samson for his secret. The Old Testament is full of stories of failure, even when the promises of doing what is right yielded huge blessings and the curse of doing wrong was so horrible.
Some of you know from experience that if you have had an aggravating or stressful day, by the end, you may have very little willpower left. That is when you feel you don’t even have the energy to fight yourself and you easily give in to whatever gives you instant gratification or requires nothing more of you.
Busy, exhausted people will stumble more
You may have heard that people have been reawakening to the idea of keeping a Sabbath day. With more studies showing how hurtful our busy lifestyles are in our physical, mental, and spiritual health, it is showing the wisdom of the Sabbath, and what a gift it is to humans.
Overcoming sin
One of the key reasons I am writing this is because of all the times I heard a preacher tell me about the horror of my sin and I left highly motivated not to sin anymore. What I didn’t know then is what Paul explains in Romans 7:18-23, which basically says that when you are doing war with yourself, it is like swimming upstream. You are going to get tired and drift back.
Getting to the root of the problem
If motivation and willpower cannot guarantee a victory over me, then the thing that needs to change is me. This is something that is known in secular habit study. They will tell you that you need to change your identity. It is said that if you convince yourself that you are a non-smoker, you will do better than have the identity of a person trying to quit. However, God offers us more than self-hypnosis.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 2 Corinthians 5:17
The above verse is fully explained in Romans 6:1-14.
God’s plan for His children is for them to become more like Jesus. Our part is to cooperate with the Holy Spirit and all Him to sanctify (change us). As I mentioned at the end of the Seven R’s of Repentance (link below), expect a miracle.
If we try to do it on our own, things like motivation and discipline are overtaxed and they run out. But everything changes if we allow the Holy Spirit to do all the heavy lifting. Learning to listen to the right motivations and being disciplined are powerful tools if a person is being changed from the inside out.
The best version of us will continue to look more like Jesus Christ.
For more on this subject, read:
Some of you might wonder about your other goals, like learning to play an instrument, achieving a certain level of fitness, or an occupational or financial goal. I suggest surrendering those goals to God and allow Him to guide and support you into which ones will put you in position to bring glory back to Him.
Exodus 5-12
Exodus 24:3,18 & Exodus 32:1
Judges 16:4-20
1 Kings 19:12
1 Kings 12:3-15
Psalm 1:1-2
Proverbs 17:24
Job 31:1
Matthew 5:29-30
Luke 18:5
John 3:3
Romans 6:1-14
Romans 7:18-23
Romans 12:2
1 Corinthians 15:33
1 Corinthians 15:58
2 Corinthians 5:17
2 Corinthians 10:5
2 Corinthians 11:3
Ephesians 4:20-24
Ephesians 5:1-20
Ephesians 6:12
Philippians 1:6
Galatians 4:8-11
Galatians 5:16-24
Colossians 2:8
2 Timothy 3:1-5
Revelation 2-3
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