My Unstable Structure

I'm just a girl who wants to live a more structured and disciplined life. I keep a calendar and plan for the big things in my life while the everyday, the framework of my life, just happens willy nilly if at all. I have allowed the actual important things in my life to become optional. A weak framework with partial or missing pieces does not make a stable structure. I have a job and I think I'm pretty good at it, so there is one area of my life where this isn't an issue. I have the threat of unemployment if I don't plan to show up and do my job. I don't have that immediate threat if I don't read my bible or workout, but the fact is that the lack of doing either can be just as detrimental to my overall well-being as losing my job. I HATE to workout and that's an understatement! However, it comes down to more than just working out for a better body or for a healthier heart. Although I do want those things, it's the discipline that I want more. I don't just want it, I NEED it! Self discipline is a mark of maturity. "What we ever hope to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence." - Samuel Johnson I see this effortless pattern scattered throughout my life. From school, to piano lessons, to yes...even my spiritual life. I always wanted the end product without the practice and work it required. It doesn't mean I didn't accomplish anything in those areas, but I could have done so much more and be the better for it. I'm one of those people who refuses to read the instruction manual for new gadgets and I just want to get my hands on it and figure it out. While that will usually provide me with basic function, without the manual, I miss out on all the special features it can do. If I might for a moment compare that scenario to life without the Bible...life's instruction manual. Without reading, you can figure out the basics, but if you want all God has for you, you're gonna have to get in there and dig in. He has so much He wants to reveal to us, but we have to put forth the effort. I have to put forth the effort! If the inner framework is weak then when adversity comes, you crumble from the inside out. "I have come that they might have life, and that they may have it more abundantly." John 10:10 The abundant life is not always the easy life. It costs you self discipline and self sacrifice. It's not gonna just fall in your lap. The greek word for abundant is perissos which means excessively, superabundant in quantity, or superior in quality, beyond measure, superfluous. Who doesn't want an overflow in their life? Yes please!! I have found for most things in life, "there is more than one way to skin a cat." What works for one doesn't work for all. I can be as creative as I want to be in finding a way to make the less than desirable tasks in life more desirable with a hope of finding a passion for them. I actually want to be one of those people who can't wait to workout. I have scoffed at them my whole life out of jealousy. I want to be so riveted by the Scriptures, that I can't put it down and I have to keep reading. It starts with a plan and then sticking to it! Success is planned for and doesn't come about by happenstance.