Five mornings a week, I do what I hate. But because of the treadmill, I’ve walked 524 miles this year—enough miles to walk from the place I live to the place I was born and back again. Since I retired, I’ve been writing. I’m not fast. I pull words from my brain one by one. But because I’ve written nearly every day since I retired, I have written over 200,000 words, including two books, some curriculum, and 200 blog posts. None of this is phenomenal. It doesn’t set any records. It’s not even inspiring. It’s just a lot of plodding along. But these are two examples of how the sometimes underrated quality of consistency pays off.
But consistency also works the other way. I wish I were natured more like my husband Steve—more attuned to what is good and honorable and pure. Instead, I consistently have an antenna up for what’s wrong. If there is a chance of danger, I’m on to it. Consistently. If someone is in trouble or mad or drifting away, I don’t miss this, either. If people are disloyal to me or to my family or to the church, I notice and remember.
If I couldn't forgive instantly and generously...I could make a habit of the Lord's Prayer.
If you want to find my first line of thinking, take the opposite of Philippians 4:8. And through the years, these steadily negative thoughts have created neural pathways in my brain as physical as the treadmill.
Here’s the thing about brain pathways—the more you use them, the smoother they get. It’s like they change from a mud path at first, then with more use, to a graveled road, and finally to a paved superhighway. This is why Steve, who’s seen the positive since he was a child in arms, can quickly find what’s honorable. And why I, with a long-time prairie dog eye for a hawk in the sky, have no trouble seeing problems . . . everywhere.
So what can I do?
A few years ago, I discovered one simple and powerful strategy.
I was reading Amish Grace, a book about the killing of five girls at the West Nickle Mines School. This is a thoughtful book. The authors don’t gloss over grief. They acknowledge the long emotional process of forgiveness. But this example of Amish grace is also a call to a high road, one so steep I have often stumbled as I’ve tried to climb.
As I read, I was looking for help. I had been valiantly trying to forgive someone—and spectacularly failing. And out of all the passages in the book, I grasped onto one small idea. This, I thought, I could do.
The Lord’s Prayer, an Amish bishop said after the killings, was their motivation to forgive. Many of them said this prayer eight times a day—in the morning, before and after meals, and in the evening.
Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors—these words, repeated day after day, year after year, had created holy paths in their brains, paths that by constant use were made easier to follow when tragedy slammed into them.
Interspersed with washing dishes and milking cows and soothing babies, their praying often must have felt dutiful. But the habitual practice had prepared them.
This, I thought, was something I could handle. If I couldn’t forgive instantly and generously like Steve, I could make a habit of the Lord’s Prayer.
To stay consistent, I linked this with the treadmill. And, maybe five years later, it’s still the first thing I do on my two-mile walk. Secondly, I say the Beatitudes.
It’s almost as if I can feel these two new pathways in my brain, paths that lead to Philippians 4:8 thinking. And they’re getting easier to follow. I don’t slog in the mud so much anymore and less gravel is crunching under my feet. Sometimes the road even seems almost as easy as Steve’s superhighway.
Nothing spectacular, just consistent.
6 Responses
Thank you, Phyllis. You have such a gift with words and I can relate to this so much.
Thank you, Phyllis! I have a similar bent. My version is to see what needs to be improved and consequently I focus on what is wrong rather than see what is better than it was and focus on encouraging people. My husband is much better at the later. Over the years, through mutual appreciation & mutual submission, I believe God has helped us enact “iron sharpening iron”. I suspect God has used Steve’s way of being/strengths and your way of being/strengths to bring more goodness into the world due to your commitment to each other. Whereas, there are times John needs my ability to “call a spade a spade” I need his ability to see that progress has been made. Therefore together we are able to directly work at the things that need improvement rather than avoiding them while staying positive and encouraging to each other and those around us. I thank you & Steve for living out who God made you uniquely to be in mutual submission to each other so we can see that it is possible to bring our strengths together to be a more powerful force for good in the world and be encouraged & inspired to do the same!
Phyllis, this is a tremendously creative way to allow your personality traits to steer you in the right direction! Thank you also for your subtle permission just to be who God made us and your encouragement to simply use our individual bent to produce fruit for his Kingdom
My pastor Lynn Byler recommended your article and after reading it it really hits home thank you
Exactly so, Phyllis. Thank you.
Phyllis, thanks for this helpful word. “Train up” can work for more than children. Blessings!