Consistency is a whip

And it has flogged me quite a few times

Like the title of today’s message, I stand face to face with the rod like whip of consistency.

I stand flinching because I know it’s about to descend on me with its brunt because I have yet again fallen short of its demands.

Consistency is not as easy as the motivational speakers who urge us to tarry and not quit in the race.

It is a whip.

It has flogged me and left numerous bruises round my body.

It has flogged me when I woke up late and didn’t make out time to pray again because I felt like I had missed out on the right time.

It has flogged me when I have forgotten to study the Word because I did not intentionally carve out time to.

It has flogged me when I have not shown up here like I ought to.

It has flogged me in silence because I have not consistently answered the demands my calling asks of me.

And the thing about this whip is, it doesn’t consider the desires of your flesh. How can it when there’s so much at stake?

It senses the gaps in your commitment and hits even harder.

Consistency doesn’t just discipline the lazy.

It exposes the distracted.

It calls out the half-committed.

It shows you that zeal means nothing without presence. Zeal without a staying, a marinating in the presence of the One who has sent you would leave you drawing the shorter end of the stick each time.

I’ve cried under this whip.

I have screamed under the weight of its lashes.

Because I know what I’m meant to be doing.

I know the oil on my life isn’t ornamental.

I know the assignments I’ve been handed didn’t come without a cost.

I know that souls are at stake and I need to be at my optimum.

But knowledge alone has never been enough to sustain obedience.

And truth be told, I’ve used my emotions as an excuse to slack.

I’ve called burnout what was actually disobedience.

I’ve labeled inconsistency “overwhelm” when it was simply misplaced priorities.

There is a standard heaven placed on me, and I’ve treated it like a suggestion.

I’ve answered the call but I haven’t lived like one who was sent.

I’ve held revelation in one hand and inconsistency in the other and wondered why the fire keeps flickering out.

How many things have I postponed in the name of not feeling ready?

How many times have I let the weight of my calling scare me into silence, when what it really required was routine?

Prayer is not always calling down fire.

The Word is not always thrilling.

Sometimes faithfulness feels like showing up to an empty room and still confessing the Word when your flesh would want to overshadow it.

And so today I confess.

More than I would like, I have fallen short of the demands placed on my life.

But I will not run from the whip.

Let it strike.

Let it bruise the parts of me that still love ease.

Let it cut through every idol of comfort I’ve exalted over obedience.

Because I would rather be wounded into discipline than pampered into uselessness.

I pray that as you go about your day today…