You must not be proud, nor be given to wine Titus 1:7; 1 Timothy 3:3. Refrain from too much eating or sleeping, and from laziness Romans 12:11. Do not grumble or speak ill of others. (Rule of St. Benedict 4. 34-40)
Hold yourself together. You let yourself go when you begin to imagine yourself superior to other people. Or maybe you tend to drink too much, or eat too much. When you don’t bother to take care of the task you’re responsible for, that’s another form of letting yourself go. And then there’s the letting go of complaining or gossip.
So keep hold of yourself. Watch your attitude and your personal habits. Watch what you say.
Ask the Holy Spirit to grant you discernment. Then set your goals for the weeks ahead. Don’t try to hit all of them every day. Spread them out over the course of the week.
Monday: Watch my attitude. Be thankful.
Tuesday: Watch what I eat.
Wednesday: Take care of that obligation that’s been sitting on the back burner.
Thursday: I know, I know…
Friday: No gossip.
Saturday: No getting drunk. (If the party’s on Friday, switch the last two.)
Sunday: Go to church. Rest.
God commands a day of rest most explicitly of all. It’s one of the original Ten Commandments. The purpose of your life is not perpetual accomplishment. Your purpose is to live in harmony with your Creator, who called you into being and who sustains your existence at every moment. When you take a day to rest, you acknowledge that your life and all your efforts depend on the grace of God. You remember that it’s the Holy Spirit who is at work within you to transform you.
When you’re examining yourself, keep in mind that self-control is like the fortified perimeter around your soul. The devil only needs a breach in one section to move in and out at will. So don’t make the mistake of dismissing your one vice because of how good you are in other areas. Your one vice can ruin your life all by itself. Your one vice can blight the lives of everyone who depends on you. Your spiritual enemy, just like all enemies attacks at the point of vulnerability.
On the other hand, don’t make the mistake of obsessing about your area of greatest weakness. It’s a mistake to focus all your energies on your worst habit, because you’ll quickly become exhausted. When you’re exhausted, you’re easily discouraged. Then you want to give up on everything. When you’ve given up, it’s even harder to try again.
But when you work regularly on all fronts, you’ll do quite well most days without heroic efforts. You’ll accomplish some positive things that make you feel victorious. It’s important to come to an awareness not only of your weaknesses but of your strengths. This helps you keep up hope. By exercising discipline systematically across all fronts, you’ll build up confidence and gain experience. Eventually you’ll be able to tackle that one thing that has always seemed impossible.
Do expect sabotage attempts. Ask for help. Don’t try to go it alone.
Five days out of the week you can manage pretty well. One day all hell breaks loose. One day you collapse into the hands of God and lie still.
Then by the grace of God you get up and try again.
