It has almost been a year since I have written a piece for this blog. Honestly, it wasn’t even on my mind at all. Occasionally, I would see the link in my Instagram profile, and I would think I really should go check in on my blog. I didn’t care. I didn’t want to look back to the reminders of the areas in my life where I had miserably, publicly, and completely, failed. Now a year older, there are some things that I feel I need to address…and this is painful to share but I’ve got to get it out there. I was wrong. I was completely wrong in so many areas about my spiritual walk, and health & fitness. I held this believe that it is all a mental battle. And yes, this is true to some degree. Motivation is something that is mental. Motivation takes Discipline. If one does not have discipline, than they will not have motivation. These are two pieces of a puzzle, and they need to be used together in order to function. Everyone has it in there somewhere to be disciplined. There isn’t a person out there that can’t be disciplined in an area if they desire it. I learned that on a spiritual note, these two puzzle pieces are directly related to our humanly flesh. Our flesh desires “worldly” satisfaction while we need to be seeking out “Godly” satisfaction. My now husband, (we got married August 12, 2014) has never understood why it is so hard for me to make a change in my life. When I start to fret over something, there he is, always assuring me, “God’s got this! You’ll be alright, you’ve got this!” He is the one person that I share my mental battles with other than God, and I really should be sharing more of my, to coin Joyce Meyer’s term, “mental strongholds” with God than I do. While I know God will provide me the strength to overcome my mental battles, and do all I am required to do in a day if I simply ask–it is hard to do so. Steve takes time in his evenings to slow down for a moment. This isn’t something he has naturally just learned to do–he disciplined himself to learn to wind down. He has disciplined himself in the way of relaxing and letting things go. I desire this for myself. I have to work against my “flesh” and learn to relax. If I cannot do this on my own–God never said we must do this alone. As he shares in the book of Exodus chapter 14, verse 14, “The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still”(Exodus NIV, 14:14). We need to be disciplined in trusting that God has everything under control. That he has given us the strength that we need to accomplish our goals. The clincher, and most important thing to realize is, we can only hear God when we get quiet. This is the only way we will be able to hear his voice. In the event where he does not grant our request, we need to be disciplined in understanding that he has something else in store for us! We live in a world where so much of what we have is instantly handed to us. God doesn’t work that way. He works on his time! And changes we might desire to make that he is still backing might take more time to occur. All these areas where we fail, and the areas that are weakest, THIS IS WHERE WE ARE FIGHTING WITH OUR FLESH. Your spirit says “no” but your worldly flesh says, “yes.” The majority of the Bible is devoted to telling us how much we are going to fight with our flesh! He never once says in the Bible that we have to go it alone, and that it will be easy. He has promised us that it will be worth it.

In conclusion, as Christians we are called to be disciplined, and often times patient. This can try us by means of being a damper on our motivation. When the flesh says give up, PLEASE, do NOT give up. God isn’t done yet! Be disciplined. Learn to slow down, and listen for God’s voice.

Thank you,
Natalie