At what point do you give up on a commitment? There are two opposing view points but neither seems right to me.
One perspective is that you should never give up on a commitment. The very meaning of the word implies that it's a pledge and one that should not be broken. There is much to this and we probably take our commitments far too lightly. But at some point it just becomes legalistic and void of grace.
The other view is that we should only do something as long as it's meaningful to us. This view says it's the heart that matters and being authentic with our actions. This perspective certainly steers clear of legalism but leaves us as weak creatures, ruled by our passions and not the will.
I have been struggling with a commitment I made a couple of months ago. It is a part of my weekly rhythm of life but I have begun to question it's meaningfulness. This week was perhaps the hardest week yet to follow through with it. I felt constantly bombarded leading up to it and during with thoughts and excuses for why I should give it up. It has lost some it's original purpose to me and began to feel like an empty ritual. And of course it's not convenient.
How do you make decisions like this of whether or not to carry through?
7 comments:
i don't know how much it applies here...
but I heard it once, and have stolen it as my own quote:
"a good 'no' is better than a bad 'yes'"
Bear - Working out & exercise is good for you - no matter what tricks your mind is playing on you ; )
Bear, I've been struggling with this too, and what I keep coming back to is the phrase: "sacrifice isn't sacrifice until it hurts." I'm in the middle of a couple of commitments that I would like to bail on, and I can come up with a zillion reasons why it would be better for my family or better for the kingdom or whatever if I stopped, but I recognize them, right now, at least, as excuses. My initial desire when signing up was to sacrificially serve someone - and now that it really feels like a sacrifice, I'm ready to move on.
I doubt that helps, other than giving me my next blog post and letting you know that you're not alone.
not being alone is helpful.
also, maybe I should come up with some arbitrary rule for myself like...
"I can't break one of these commitments unless I follow through with it for 2 consecutive months and still think it's best to break it."
that's getting out of the legalistic boat right?
but, would that be 2 months from when you started, or 2 months from the point where you want to break it?
from when you want to break it. 2 months is about my breaking point with anything.
I can do anything for the first 2 months.
Bear, I'm in the decision making stage on whether or not to start this commitment with you and Dad, you can't bail now.
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