The 30 Day Challenge

          About 3 weeks ago, Pastor Peter mentioned in his message on how to create or form a new habit. He said, that for something to become a habit, you have to do it repetitively everyday for 30 days. Some says its only 21 days some says its 40, so 30 days is the safest being in between. I've tried developing a new a habit before but I always fail.

          After some recent revelations in my life and being bothered by some issues, I decided to take the 30 day: Form a New Habit Challenge. This was also brought about by the series in church about pursuing intimacy with God. I admit that I'm not really that consistent in journalizing and I really want to be faithful in writing dow all the things that I've learned. For me its easier to type than to write. My hand gets easily tired when I'm writing. Unlike with typing, you can easily say anything you want and delete if you dont like it. The problem with typing is that it might be deleted permanently. So I never considered saving my journal in my laptop...again, since it happened for around 3x already.

          Being in a very hectic work day schedule, my mind, most of the time if not always is preoccupied by things or stuff that is related to the office. That includeds people, friends, bosses, work itself, when will be the next holiday, rest day, double pay, sick leave, vacation leave, pay day and a lot more. The moment that I wake up, I would immediately ask myself if Im already late for work. Since that is becoming a cycle, I know that i have to do something about it. Before, the first thing that I would think of when I wake up or first thing that I would say is "Thank you Lord" but it slowly fade because Im always in a hurry to prepare for work. I know im not pleasing God with that kind of attitude.

          It has always been my prayer that I would really fall in love so deeply with God. That only His love will satisfy me, that He alone is enough. Just like in any other relationship, if you really want to know more about the person, you have to spend time with them. And I know that the more I spend my time knowing God, the more I will fall in love and be in love with Him.

         Here are the things that I decided to do in 30 days:
1. Talk to God immediately upon waking up. Say Thank You or Good Morning.
2. First thing that I will do before anything else is have my Quiet Time then pray.
3. Journalize before going to sleep.
4. Read the bible again before going to sleep.

         Currently, Im already on my 21st day today. I was even surprised upon counting the days and how many days hae gone so far and how many days were left. Honestly this challenge was not really easy. Its hard specially when you're not used to it. The hardest for me is the journalizing part. I still missed some days. But even before I start with this challenge, I already had this mindset that i should not be so hard with myself and be so legalistic. I know that if it happened, I will just feel so guilty missing on some days, then I would end up not finishing the challenge because of so much guilt. I would elaborate more the challenges that I encounterd during the 30 days period on my next blogs.

          I have learned so much from this experience. It has been of great help for my everyday life as a christian. Being preoccupied with the thoughts of God and being excited to spend time with Him. I asked God to give me a new bible if I finished the challenge successfully. Of course it would not end on the 30th day. It should be a habit. Not just a habit in that sense or for the sake of doing it but doing it because its already part of my life and part of my day doing it naturally.

Philippians 4:13

New International Version (NIV)

¹³ I can do all this through him who gives me strength. 

Matthew 19:26

New International Version (NIV)

²⁶ Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”