Shabbat Shalom Friends!
I have a confession to make…
I am one of those people who make endless lists but never seems to actually get through them.
My notes and reminders just seem to pile up, every time I accomplish one thing, three more are added. Similarly, I have a long list of negative traits that never seem to get smaller, only larger. A bucket-list of self-improvement goals, if you will.
Do you feel the same way I do? Do you have ideas and intentions that have fallen by the wayside throughout your life?
Whether it’s ending bad habits or forming good ones, we all face a struggle of change and growth. This takes time, effort, and planning. But there is someone who always seems to get in the way, someone we can blame many of our failures upon: ourselves! (I’ve never been so aware of Paul’s words in Romans 7:15)
You’ve probably heard the idiom ‘your greatest enemy is the one staring back at you in the mirror’, and this phrase can often be more true than not. Ask any individual trying to quit smoking, drinking, or another addictive behavior and they will tell you that it is their own thoughts and behavior that gets in the way of their success.
So how can we recognize self-sabotage and get out of our own way?
I had a very close friend who I grew up with. We spent a lot of time together over the years, getting into mischief and experiencing what the world had to offer. But now as the decades have gone by, I’ve moved on in my life. I’ve come to new moral understandings, and he is still doing the same things. We no longer have much in common, nor should we.
If we still spent a lot of time together, one of us would have to become similar to the other; you and I both know it would be easier for me to slip back into bad habits than it would for my friend to suddenly become more interested in Yeshua.
We all have friends and family members that we used to live our previous lives with. Maybe we still have people like this influencing our lives. They could be genuinely good people. But eventually through association they will bring us down – as it says in 1Cor 15:33: “Worthless company corrupts good habits”. This doesn’t mean we should completely remove ourselves from those who think or believe differently with us, simply that we must be wary of those that we spend time with. We have to be on guard against the passive influence that company has on us.
It’s not just our friends and family who influence us either. Our workplace culture and coworkers, the blogs and internet articles we read, social media commends, the movies and news that we watch; all of these influence us and weaken us over time to give in to old habits or pick up new ones. I recently saw an ad for a Christian company which started with “does your streaming content make you a better wife and mother? A better husband and father?” among other similar statements. By voluntarily staying or putting ourselves in these situations or with these associations, we are in fact sabotaging our future success!
Most of you know that I work in HR, both onsite for an engineering company and running my own HR consultancy. I hear complaints from people nearly every week about their jobs and their organizations. Through my conversations, I have found that the main reason people do not leave their jobs is because they are comfortable. Even if something is bugging them, it’s outweighed in their mind by the fact that they are used to the job, they already know the ropes, and it doesn’t require the amount of effort it would take to do something different or go somewhere else. Their comfort perpetuates their own misery.
From friends, family, fellowship members, and acquaintances, I’ve heard complaints about relationships, houses, children, tasks, personal issues, everything under the sun. The same thing applies. People are comfortable and don’t want to make changes even
when they recognize problems, and even when they know the solutions!
We are all like this. We want something but constantly make excuses. “The soul of a lazy man desires and has nothing…” (Prov 13:4). Just like my unending lists of goals and improvements, procrastination always is the first on the list, and it’s hard to get much farther than that. By the time an issue becomes too big to ignore or push aside, it is often too late to confront it.
This is a self-sabotage that we need to address, especially when it comes to our walk with Yah. God doesn’t do excuses.
“I’m too tired”
“I’ll do it later”
“I’m not sure”
“I don’t have the time”
Would we really say that to God’s face? So why do we say it to ourselves?
Pushing beyond excuses requires prayer – lots of it. But in addition, overcoming our own comfort usually requires us to establish accountability with someone else (or multiple people). Getting a confidant, a friend, or a group to help us through the battle is essential.
Many years ago, I had the opportunity to serve in a program as a behavioral counselor. During this time, I worked with a particular individual who had some intense struggles and addictions. Through conversing with him and trying to help him through the issues, I came to the realization that many of the scenarios showed patterns. When he was alone, he struggled more. In the evenings, his temptations grew. And when he looked at certain items, he reacted in negative ways according to habits that were already engraved in his head.
What about you and me? Do we have certain scenarios that start off innocent, but then always seem to lead to a negative thing that we did not intend?
Take for example, a person struggling with pornography: what are the environmental patterns that could be seen in his or her struggle? The struggle always happens when alone, after dark, with a computer. This person could decide to spend more time with people at night time, lock the computer up at night, or even get rid of it all together.
Recognizing patterns in the when, where, and what of our struggles is the easy part. Where are we when we are failing or struggling? When do we struggle most? What physical tools do we use to sabotage ourselves?
The hard part comes with dealing with your environment, because it often means sacrifice. BUT if we truly want to overcome self-sabotage, we must be willing to give things up. Is it extreme for the social media addict to get rid of his phone? Is it extreme for the shopaholic to cut up her credit cards? I don’t think Yah would view it as extreme. He would see our devotion to Him and will and want to follow His ways. Our willing sacrifices to overcome our environmental hazards are pleasing to God.
In fact – Yeshua claims that we are REQUIRED to be radical about our approach here: “If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into Gehenna. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into Gehenna.” (Matt 5:29-30)
If our loving Father tells us to pluck out our own eye or cut off our own hand when they are negatively impacting us – I’m pretty sure we can put the phone down, cut the credit card up, make an “extreme” change. Remember: “If you have run with the footmen, and they have wearied you, Then how can you contend with horses? And if in the land of peace, In which you trusted, they wearied you, Then how will you do in the floodplain of the Jordan?” (Jere 12:5)
I want to move beyond my patterns of self-sabotage, and I’m sure you do too.
Remember:
- We set ourselves up for failure when we pick the wrong people to be around.
- We set ourselves up for failure when we make excuses, becoming comfortable in our own misery, not wanting to put the effort into overcoming procrastination.
- We set ourselves up for failure when we do not eliminate the places, time, and tools that we use for our own demise.
We need to be choosing our company wisely, become accountable to ourselves and others, and cast away the things, places, and free time that lead to failure.
I challenge you to look at your current struggles this week and ask yourself: “Am I sabotaging myself?”
Let’s all pray for each other by name as we set about this task of refining.
Have a blessed Shabbat!
Josh