Have you ever tried a fad diet? From low carb to paleo, for decades now, our culture has created a steady stream of weight loss products and methods, all promising dramatic results. Though the strategies vary wildly, one thing unites them: speed.
While we may have spent years adopting unhealthy eating or exercise habits, these diets promise that this can all be reversed in just a few short days. And so we believe their promises, often see dramatic results, and yet a few months down the road find ourselves right back where we started. Why is this?
For us to truly be healthy, we must make enduring and lasting changes to our behavior and habits. This is true of our physical bodies, and it is certainly true of our spiritual health.
As C.S. Lewis once said, “Mere change is not growth. Growth is the synthesis of change and continuity, and where there is no continuity there is no growth.”
Has your Christian faith ever looked like a fad diet? Have you embraced a long list of good and Godly practices, yet found them too challenging to sustain and therefore abandoned them shortly thereafter? In my own journey, the most lasting growth has come, not in the spurts of religious fervor, but in the slow and steady work of daily surrender to the will of God, learning to hear his voice and follow his lead.
“We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us" Romans 5:3-5
If you’ve struggled to grow in your relationship with Christ, today’s challenge is to seek ways to be consistent in your faith. Think quality, not quantity. Find a rhythm of prayer, worship, and service that is sustainable for you and your family, and commit to live by it.
As Paul reminds us, “endurance produces character.” It is in the life long commitment to an enduring faith that God conforms us to his image. Don’t settle for the quick fix.
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