I'll Start Tomorrow

How many times have you committed to starting something new (whether it be working out, eating healthier, daily devos, or whatever new habit you want to form) only to make it to the end of the day without doing it? You typically comfort yourself by saying "Oh, I'll start tomorrow." If you're anything like me, this is a regular occurrence. I've done this at least a billion times throughout my life time, and at least 20 times this semester. This is something I've felt convicted about lately. Though I've always seen this in myself, it really hit me when reading a poem by Lope de Vega I'm doing a group presentation on for my Spanish literature class:

¿Qué tengo yo, que mi amistad procuras? 

¿Qué interés se te sigue, Jesús mío, 

que a mi puerta, cubierto de rocío, 

pasas las noches del invierno oscuras?

¡Oh, cuánto fueron mis entrañas duras, 

pues no te abrí! ¡Qué extraño desvarío, 

si de mi ingratitud el hielo frío 

secó las llagas de tus plantas puras!

¡Cuántas veces el ángel me decía: 

«Alma, asómate ahora a la ventana, 

verás con cuánto amor llamar porfía»!

¡Y cuántas, hermosura soberana, 

«Mañana le abriremos», respondía, 

para lo mismo responder mañana!

Sorry about the Spanish for you non-Spanish speakers. There's a English translation on this website if you scroll down a bit. But pretty much the poem describes the speaker's relationship with Christ. He asks at the beginning what he has that Christ would show interest in him, that Christ would come knocking on his door (allusion to Revelation 3:20). He acknowledges his hard heart and his ingratitude that kept him from opening the door. The last two lines is what really hit me though. A rough translation is "Tomorrow we will open [the door], only to say the same thing tomorrow". I don't know about you, but I'm guilty of this. I always tell myself "I'll start tomorrow", but say the same thing the next day, and the next, and the next (etc). Though this applies to a variety of things in my life, for the purpose of this blog post, I'm going to apply it to my spiritual life.

I've learned a lot this year as an RA. Look at any of my blog posts from the past 6 months and you'll see that. But I would say the #1 thing I've learned is the importance of spending time in the Word daily. It's necessary to recharge, to ground myself in Christ, and to prepare my heart for the day. However, just because I realize the importance does not mean that I do it. I come up with plenty of excuses not to, busyness and sleeping being the top two. When talking about this with my mentor, he pushed me to think about what is keeping me "too busy" to spend time with God. I can't really say that I'm too busy to spend time reading my Bible when I've spent a good amount of the past few weeks watching Netflix... not to mention 3 different chick flick nights with my girls throughout the course of last weekend. Busyness with homework is another go to excuse for me. I'm a student, so I have to do my homework, right? Right... but God needs to be the top priority in my life. And going back to what I said before, I can't say that I'm too busy and don't have enough time for homework and devotions when Netflix is a huge use of my time. So this is something I'm trying to work on. I will not be too busy to spend time reading my Bible and in prayer, I'm going to make it a priority. I will stop saying "I'll start tomorrow" and start saying "I'll do it right now." And I encourage you to do the same. It doesn't have to be regarding daily devotions, but with any habit you want to start. Go and do it now. Except for it's starting to get late, so it actually might be best to just go to bed and say that you'll start tomorrow ;)