I Am Waiting To Become Consistent

There is a woman you are waiting to become.

She is consistent. She does things regularly. She has whatever it is that makes a thing happen on Tuesday and then again on Wednesday, and once she arrives you will be able to start.

And you have been waiting for her for a long time, and you have been fairly patient about it, and she has not come.

Here is what I want to look at, and I think it may be the most useful thing on this whole site.

She is not coming, because she does not exist, and she has never existed, and nobody has ever met her.

Consistent is not a kind of person. It is a description applied afterward to somebody who did a thing several times. Nobody is consistent in advance. There is no woman anywhere who became consistent and then started doing things; every single one of them did things and was called consistent later, and most of them would tell you they do not feel like it at all.

He which hath begun a good work

There is a verse in Philippians about something started and not finished.

Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:6, King James Version)

He which hath begun.

Past tense. Already started. And the person it is written to is, at the time of writing, somewhere in the middle of it, unfinished, not yet what they will be.

That is the state the whole verse is addressed to. Not the finished person. The one who has been begun in and is not done.

And the confidence in that sentence is not about the person's consistency. It is about the one doing the work. The performing is His. The person is the site of the work, not the engine of it.

You are not waiting to become somebody before this can begin, and Philippians 1:6 has never once been written to a finished person. It is written to somebody unfinished and in the middle, and the Holy Spirit is the one who does the performing rather than waiting for a person to become capable of it.

You have been waiting to arrive at the state this verse describes you as already being in. The word says he which hath begun, past tense, and the Spirit of God is the one who has been at work in somebody who feels like nothing has started.

Consistent is a description, not a qualification

Now the practical piece, and it is the whole hinge.

Think about what happens if you do fifteen minutes tonight, and then again on Thursday, and then not for a week, and then twice the following week.

At the end of a month, somebody looking at that would call it fairly consistent. Not because a consistent person arrived on any particular day. Because a pattern existed, and a pattern is made of instances, and instances are made by anybody who is present.

You have been trying to become a description before doing the thing that produces it, and no person anywhere has ever once managed that order. Philippians 1:6 addresses somebody unfinished and in the middle, and the Holy Spirit is the one who begins in people who are nowhere near ready.

So the order has been backward, and it is backward in almost everybody. The attempt has been to become the description before doing the thing that produces it.

And nobody can do that, which is why the waiting has been so long and so quiet and has felt so much like a failing.

You were never behind on becoming somebody, and there has never once been a person anywhere who acquired consistency before doing anything. Philippians 1:6 addresses the unfinished in the middle of the work, and the Spirit of God is the one who begins in people who are nowhere near ready.

So tonight is one instance. Not the start of a pattern, because calling it that puts weight on it that will break it.

You are permitted to do one instance tonight and let it be one instance, and it has never once needed to be the first of anything. It is written that He which hath begun will perform it, which puts the continuing on Him, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present in one evening that nobody is counting.

Fifteen minutes, unfinished

So here is the whole of it.

Set a timer for fifteen minutes and do anything.

Do not call it a fresh start. Do not tell anybody. Do not decide what happens tomorrow. Tomorrow is not being decided tonight and it does not need to be.

When the timer goes, stop.

Then stop and do nothing else.

You are able to do one unfinished thing tonight, and it has never once required you to have become anybody first. Philippians 1:6 is addressed to people in the middle, and the Spirit of God is present in a fifteen minutes with nothing declared about it.