In Transition

I'm still trying to figure out who I am. I'm in transition and it's hard to deal with. I want to be an organized, responsible, disciplined person in order to effective for God's ministry and for life. I used to be lazy, disorganized, irresponsible and selfish. God has shown me that in order to function spiritually on even a basic level I have to embrace these disciplines. When I do, I thrive. The problem is I don't really know how to do this. I'm in the midst of a complete reprogramming.

For most of my life, I've lived in laziness and selfishness, so it's so easy to default back to these things. Not only that, but I know almost nothing else, so it's very hard for me to move forward because I have no preexisting format or example to follow.

And here I am, living a lifestyle that demands ultimate discipline because of the realistically limited time I have: I'm a full-time student, I work 15 hours a week (which includes rather concentrated shifts, not just spread out nicely throughout the week), I have to commute, and my dietary restrictions don't afford me the convenience of being able to quickly throw together a meal; I have to spend a good amount of time cooking and preparing most of my food in advance. I've got a lot going on that leaves little room for distractions. So I pay for it if there's any time spent not being utterly responsible. Time is so precious right now that I have very little wiggle room. Arguably I don't actually have enough time, so often time has to be created at the expense of lost sleep. This is especially true if I want to fulfill my expectations for my performance in school, specifically excelling and getting A's. (I should mention that "A's" aren't necessarily important, but my understanding and grasp of the material, as well as my engagement with it is reflected by higher grades.)

The problem is, I'm so disorganized, easily distracted and terrible at effectively using my time that too much time is wasted by either doing nothing or doing stuff that isn't that important. This is a problem because I honestly cannot afford to lose any time, and am likely failing most of my classes as a result. FAILING.

I have periods where I do really good, but it's usually inconsistent or never permanent. It'd be one thing if I was mostly consistent in my discipline and occasionally had periods where I got off track, but unfortunately the exact reverse is true. I cannot afford this.

So here I am, stuck in transition, at a time where I need to be disciplined, yet am not, and have to watch it all unfold before my eyes, to my utter horror. This is incredibly frustrating. I want to be a good student. I want to be disciplined and excel in my schoolwork. I can technically afford to get bad grades because it's all on me. I'm the one who stands to fail, and no one really goes down on this ship with me but me. But I want to be effective for God's ministry. I cannot afford to be behaving like this if I expect to be employed and participate at a professional level. For the real world, I can't get away with this. I'll be fired or never hired.

Aside from the secular things, I don't want to be ineffective for God. When people are lost and dying, I don't want to be sitting around wasting my time with television or video games (or insert your selfish distraction of choice) when that could be time spent honing my writing--for example--or doing something similarly Christ-minded. This I cannot afford. Time is too short. We have to live desperately for Christ or the world is lost.

So I don't want to wait for things to slacken to become effective for God. I don't want to wait to have less responsibilities to allow myself a better focus. I want to be a good steward of where God has me now. It's doable.

Lord, I need your strength to get me through this. I need your providence to build me up and make me effective for you. I can't do this without you.

Lord, thank you for transition. Even though I'm frustrated at where I'm at because I know and can see where I need to be, it is transition towards that person. You are molding me into the man you need me to be, and this is just the journey towards that. Thank you Lord that this transition is in constant continuum, that daily you are renewing me and that you will finish your good work in me.