Circular Motion

Like a dog that finds the mud puddle after a bath, why is it that I have found myself doing the same thing?  In light of everything God has taught me, I find myself stumbling back into the same old patterns I have been caught in for too long.

How to you break a habit? How do you stop doing the things you have been doing for years?

Like a dog, should you completely lock up the dog in a cage? But when it comes to it, locking it in the cage will only let him be clean temporarily. As soon as you let him out, the dog will find the mud puddle.

I guess you train the dog. You teach him not to roll around in the mud puddles after a bath.

Maybe that's how this is going to be. As I learn to replace old habits with new, I will stumble and run back sometimes. But if I'm allowing God to train and teach me, then I will notice the wrong I am committing.

But sometimes I just feel like I'm moving in a circular motion rather than a straight line. I feel like it's hopeless to teach myself the good, because my tendencies incline themselves to the "mud puddles" of my life.

Then again, that's where the Holy Spirit comes in. When I am weak, He is strong.

I don't know. A piece of me wants to be done. To have learned all of this already. Had I been willing to learn in high school, then I wouldn't be here. But then again, I can't change the past.

I just pray that I continue to move forward rather than in the circular wandering I have been for too long. I pray that I will not grow discouraged, but that I would learn what it means to avoid the "mud puddles."