I’ve always been a careful observer, and I notice certain patterns. I’m interested in learning from mistakes, mine and those of others as well. Minimizing mishaps and missteps is my continual goal, so that my momentum on this Christian journey isn’t impeded and I don’t waste time needlessly. Even as I teenager, I had a keen awareness that there is always a cost to the choices we make. One of the patterns I noticed was that of some of the young men that I grew up with. One by one, they traded their futures for quick pleasures and poor decisions. Like some who came before them, they didn’t recognize their mistakes until their youth had faded. They grew older, but not wiser. Their momentum in life slowed almost to a halt, and the price they paid for their unwise behavior consumed most of their resources. In their older years, they came to the Lord, and did so almost depleted and without the zeal and energy they could have had.

All of us make mistakes, and sometimes we make some doozies. But when we continue to meet with unhappy circumstances, it’s a signal that we need to get closer to God and learn to walk in the Spirit in a greater way. Life will not cooperate with an unwillingness to submit to God, and those who think it will end up getting caught and sometimes stuck in a vicious negative cycle. It’s a cycle where the devil sniffs out our vulnerabilities in our youth, and then continues to tempt us with them when we’re adults. We don’t often recognize the toll some of this takes on our lives until we’re older and without the vigor and strength we thought we’d have. It shouldn’t be lost on us that this was exactly the outcome the enemy was looking for, to get people so indoctrinated in habit patterns that they never take the time to think about what they’re doing and why.

Faith belongs to God. He gives it to us so that we can be in relationship with Him. Hebrews 11:6(NLT) tells us, “And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him.” From this truth, we must realize that our relationship with God must be based on our faith in Him. Without this faith in God, we cannot please Him. We also know from God’s Word that it isn’t enough to walk around saying that we have faith. Making the confession is good, but it isn’t enough to manifest results. James 2:26 tells us that just as the body is dead without breath, faith is dead without the good works to back it up.

That’s a really simple truth, but it is so deep that we could live ten thousand years and never reach the end of it. We must know that if we spend years developing habit patterns that cause us to end up unfulfilled, unhappy, and dissatisfied, somewhere along the way, it must dawn on us that we can reroute things by changing those habit patterns. We can’t continue doing the same things and expect a different outcome. The works have to change.

Negative or unhelpful habit patterns develop when wrong thinking and feeling are reinforced and repeated. They are done so with the wrong actions backing them up. For instance, if a daughter’s mother feels bad about herself, continually puts herself down, and is never happy with her life, a daughter will witness this. She’ll see her mother feeling bad about herself, and she will see this ‘feeling bad’ reinforced with her mother’s negative confessions and constantly putting herself down. The mother puts her daughter down as well, and hardly ever says anything life affirming. In many respects, the daughter grows up to do what she witnessed her mother doing. Devaluing herself and her contributions become a habit. Because of this, the daughter forfeits many opportunities in life because she doesn’t feel worthy and doesn’t think much of her own capabilities.

These are habit patterns of thoughts and feelings that bundle together to keep us stuck. We think and speak in a way that does not line up with who God says we are, what He says we can do, and what He says we can have. Instead of making a shift, many of us keep on doing the same things. We think that life will respond differently to us even when we have refused to change the way we respond to it. This is not how God designed life to work. He instructs us in Proverbs 4:23 to watch over our hearts with diligence, because the issues of life spring forth from what’s going on in our hearts. In other words, if we’re feeling lackluster about the wealth of spiritual treasures the Father has given us, lackluster results will be the return that life gives back to us.

Things do not change for us when we speak, think, and behave in the opposite direction of faith. If God rewarded our wrong thoughts, feelings, and actions, He would be an unrighteous judge, and God can never be that. We are the only people who can change this for ourselves. Heavenly Father will not come inside our heads and start moving the bad stuff out. He will not make us shift gears and think with the higher mind of Christ. He tells us in Ephesians 4:23 that we must renew our minds to His Word and change the way we think.

In our older years, many of us use our age as an excuse to hold even more tightly to that old way of thinking, speaking, and behaving. We speak negatively to others, we confess the exact opposite of what God says about His promises and provision, and we don’t use our time to make our minds razor sharp through God’s Word. We can’t get wiser if we don’t study God’s Word, and it doesn’t make sense to live over fifty years on this planet and still not know the purpose for which we were born.

When our bodies don’t do what they used to and our physical energy isn’t what it was twenty years ago, we’re supposed to shift gears. Our spiritual energy should be through the roof, and we should be depending on the Holy Spirit to quicken us in ways we couldn’t have imagined in our youth. Young folks should be envying what they see God doing for us—the wisdom, the renewal, the enthusiasm and zeal for God, the clean heart and right spirit. But instead, they see us deteriorating, complaining, and allowing the enemy to beat us up because we didn’t learn to walk in the faith of Jesus Christ. Let’s change this. Don’t let your age slow your momentum. Make the commitment to live through God’s Spirit! He will quicken you and amaze you with what he will do when you renew your mind to God’s Word, speak life and confess His promises, and give yourself completely over to His guidance.■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

“Don’t Let Age Slow Your Momentum” written by Reverend Fran Mack, edited by Kim Times, for Sundie Morning Sistas ©2021. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!