Guest Post: Steve Mickel – stevemickel.com

I don’t know about you, but I am prone to wander. For various reasons I sometimes follow my inclinations to sin, to be constantly self-focused, and to be less intentional about fulfilling the goals I have for my life. It’s easier, in the short-term, to wander then to live within boundaries.

Ken Johnson recently tweeted, “Be wise. Set boundaries. Your fences need to be horse-high, pig-tight and bull-strong.” I need to hear that today. Most of the time my fences are broken down and full of gaps. So how do we set boundaries for our lives so we, as the Apostle Paul writes, “don’t fulfill the desires of our flesh”?

It happens through habits. Most of the time we don’t realize our lives are made up of the habits we practice. If you took a moment and though about all the different things you do in a day: get up and brush your teeth, go to bed at a certain time, eat certain kinds of food, watch certain television shows, etc. All of these are habits. For instance, when I get up in the morning I go downstairs and sit in the same chair, with a cup of coffee, read my Bible and pray, and then watch Bob Shaw tell me the weather. It’s a little freaky when you realize what we do without even thinking about it. This is how we sometimes get into trouble and how wandering begins. We stop thinking about the ruts we’ve created in our lives that lead towards a lack of health (I’m not saying watching Bob in the morning is unhealthy, you know what I mean).

What if we intentionally created other habits in our lives, boundaries, that don’t limit our lives but produce more life. For instance, I wasn’t drinking enough water during my day. So I intentionally made an agreement with my flesh: no cup of coffee in the morning until I drink 20 ounces of water. You can be sure I drink 20 ounces faster than any other time of day. I found that if I start my day by drinking water, before coffee, I am prone to drink more water throughout the day then I would have otherwise. Does it happen every day? No. So is it a habit? Yes. It is consistent and I don’t bail on my overall health because I missed a day. I just go over to that part of my fence and strengthen it a bit more.

Hope this is helpful for those who are reading my blog. It’s helping me.