At first, I had trouble putting on my socks.  I couldn’t reach my toes as easily as I once could.  Then I had trouble tying my shoes.  It became a struggle.  Finally, I had to come up for air half-way through the process.  That’s when I said, “Enough!  Something has to change.”

    This happened about six months before my seventy-first birthday.  I took that as my target date, vowing to lose twenty-five pounds by then.  Pat didn’t think anything would happen, because she had heard me talk about losing weight before.  But I was motivated by having to come up for air while tying my shoes.  I started walking a brisk mile every morning.  I changed lunch to a salad with herb vinegar.  I ate only one plateful at supper, and nothing after that except an apple.  To everyone’s surprise, I lost twenty-six  pounds by my birthday.  And I did it because I was motivated.

    Thinking about this caused me to think about how we often let things go downhill in so many areas because we are not motivated enough to make changes.  This happens in our family life.  We may be very unhappy with the way things are going, but we just plug along without trying to solve the problems because it will take effort to change things.

    It sometimes happens in our churches.  Things gradually go downhill.  The fellowship we once knew is no longer there.  We didn’t notice when things started to change, but now they are bad.  But it will cost us effort and more to correct the situation, so we do nothing.

    It often happens in our personal spiritual lives.  Where we once had a vibrant faith, with big doses of prayer and the Bible, now we just go through the motions.  Where there once was a sense of excitement, now we are bored.  We know we need to change, but it is too difficult.  It will cost too much.  So we just keep on doing the same old things, with no satisfaction and no joy.

    What we need is motivation.  When bending over to tie my shoes cut off my air supply, I became motivated to do something about it.  I had needed to take action for a long time, but it was too costly.  So I did nothing until something happened to push me into action.  Maybe what we need to do is ask God to motivate us.  I think He will do so.  But it could take a jolt, like cutting off our air, to get things moving.