Ninety Days

Read

Hebrews 10:23-25 "Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching."

Think

Walk through a field of tall grass and the first trip is miserable. The grass is above your waist. There is no trail. You are shoving it aside with your arms the whole way and you are not sure you are even going straight.

Now walk the same line tomorrow. And the day after. By the end of the week the grass is bent. By the second week there is a visible path. A month in, you are not thinking about it at all. Your feet just find it.

Nobody built that path. It got walked into existence.

That is exactly what repeated choices do inside a person. Every time you pray instead of panic, you are laying down a little more of a path. Every time you open God's Word before you open the app, you are laying down a path. Every time you show up to church on a night you did not feel like going, you are laying down a path. Do it long enough and you stop deciding, because your feet already know.

And the same thing is true in the other direction, which is the part everybody skips. Whatever you keep walking becomes a road, whether you meant to build it or not.

The writer of Hebrews understood this, and verse 25 is oddly blunt about it. "Not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing." Habit. Even in the first century, nobody stood up and announced they were quitting the church. They just got out of the habit. Drift has always been quiet.

So, the fix he gives is not a feeling. It is two verbs. Hold unswervingly. Spur one another on. Spur is not a soft word. It is what you do to get a horse moving when it has stopped. He is describing friends who push each other, not friends who politely leave each other alone.

And hold on to why he says we can hold unswervingly. Not because you are strong. "For he who promised is faithful." Your grip is not what makes this work. His is.

Which brings us to the actual challenge. The next ninety days.

One, take a friendventory and get honest about who is closest to you. Two, read your Bible and pray every day, ten minutes and two. Three, be at church every Sunday and every Wednesday, including the weeks you do not want to. Four, start serving somewhere instead of only attending. Five, do all of it with at least one other person.

Ninety days is not magic. It is just long enough that the grass stays down.

Two students start the same challenge on the same Monday. Both of them miss a Tuesday in week three, because everybody misses a Tuesday in week three. The first one decides he has already blown it and quietly stops. The second one wakes up Wednesday and picks it back up like nothing happened.

Six months later those two are not in the same place, and the difference between them was never discipline. It was what they believed about missing one day.

So celebrate consistency, not perfection. You are going to miss a day. Make the commitment now that you will never miss two.

The field is right in front of you and the grass is still tall. Ninety days from today there is either a path there or there is not, and the only thing that decides it is your feet.

Apply

Start the ninety – Write today's date and the date ninety days from now somewhere you will see it. Under it, list all five commitments: friendventory, ten and two every day, church on Sundays and Wednesdays, serving somewhere, and the name of one person doing it with you. Text that person today.

Pray

God, ninety days feels long and I already know I am going to miss some of them. Help me to not quit on the days I fail. Build something in me that outlasts how I feel about it. And thank you for not giving up on me the way I give up on myself. In Jesus' name. Amen.