If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.

Galatians 5:25

It’s pretty easy to say we will do something tomorrow. Much harder to get busy doing it today.

The best way to tell whether a decision has been made is to look at what we start or don’t start doing immediately following the choice. We are forced to admit, if we have even a smidge of honest self-reflection, that choices (especially regarding our drinking) come easily. It’s the follow through where we get hung up.

How many times have we sworn things off only to return to square one on the following morning? How many fox-hole prayers have we offered up with straight faces, knotted guts and perfect sincerity? We lack nothing in the way of resolve.

Yet we have a curious and often preposterous tendency to develop amnesia immediately upon feeling better. The darkness of the night before does not seem quite so severe in the light of a new day. Particularly if admitting that it was would require true change.

How much harder for the believer! What is our claim of salvation worth if we continue using and drinking in perpetuity? Forgiveness is full and free, sure. Grace is given not earned, yeah. But…

Won’t evidence of living by the Spirit be apparent? Won’t we be able to quickly assess the honesty of our walk with our creator? Keeping in step with the Spirit is no laughing matter, and like sobriety will take a lifetime of practice. Let us not forget that true practice is a striving to live in the moment, fleeing those things that have and will bring us down.

Here too we find another attribute of the walk with Christ that we are only capable of because of the strength he provides us. And to execute that, we need the courage that he instills in us.

Courage not to walk forward fearlessly, but courage to trudge forward in spite of the fears and doubts that may only come to rest in the next life.