Prodigal Magazine

OK, if you’re Snoop Dog, you might have some idea what that title means, but if you’re anyone else, you’re probably scratching your head. So let me explain. The mo is short for momentum, and the fizzle is what happens when momentum dies out. The fo shizzle is rap language for for sure, and really has nothing to do with today’s blizzle (blog). It’s just there to catch your attention and get you to read!

Apparently, it worked because here you are reading it. Today’s subject is consistency, something we all probably struggle with from time to time. I wrestle with it constantly; in fact, the one thing I’m consistent with is being inconsistent. (In case you’ve ever wondered what an oxymoron is, I just gave you a great example: consistently inconsistent!) I start strong, with plenty of momentum, but as time goes on, I slow down and have difficulty maintaining a steady pace to the finish.

I work in the “what have you done for me lately” industry, and you probably do too, so how do we overcome this problem? Do we just shrug it off as part of our personality—a character flaw that we and everyone else just has to deal with? Or do we look at it as an opportunity for growth—a character flaw that God wants to use to help us mature? (Sorry, folks, there is no third option!)

I’m going to assume everyone picked the second choice, so that’s where I’m going with this column (big shocker, right?!) The mo is probably the easy one for most of you. A great idea quickly becomes an outstanding plan, and the plan gets set into motion with plenty of excitement and passion behind its execution.

Sooner or later, though, that passion begins to fade as the excitement wears off. It’s just like all those old Christmas presents that get lost in a closet somewhere—you know, the ones you just couldn’t live without and bugged your parents for months to get you! That’s the fizzle. Below are some tips that have helped me and should help you too. (If not, call my lawyer—he’ll issue you a full refund for the purchase price of this blog!)

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 explains the notion of power in numbers. Although all four verses are important, I’d like to expand on a couple specific concepts in this passage. In verse 11, the obvious translation is that the two people share body warmth, but this phrase can also be indicative of sexually lying together and sharing or igniting passion. This, I believe, is just as important as the way it’s written in English because the passion of others in a group is often the key ingredient to keeping a project or idea moving forward to the finish line. Just as one match can ignite an entire book of matches, one passionate contributor can ignite the whole team!

Additionally, the second half of verse 12 takes the entire concept of these four verses to the next level. The power of two is identified as the subject matter in verse 9, and the next three verses build on that idea. But the last sentence of the scripture grouping says, “a cord of three strands is not quickly broken,” implying that if two are better than one, it stands to reason that three are better than two, four are better than three, and so on.

Next, it’s important to keep your eye on the prize. Paul tells us not to “become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Gal 6:9). This verse is chock full of good nuggets—whole books have been written on The Law of the Harvest—but we’re just going to skim off the curd so to speak and look at two key points here.

The first is in understanding the Law of the Harvest as a whole: “you reap what you sow” (Gal. 6:7). When you set a plan in motion, you have an end goal in mind. You will reach this goal if you have a good strategy and you execute it fully. That’s the promise in reaping what you sow. God can’t lie, so you can’t not reach your goal if you continue to execute. Typically, the fizzle gains momentum the more we shift our focus off the prize and onto the obstacles. One thing you can do to minimize this is begin to train yourself to look for the opportunity in every obstacle, because that’s really all obstacles are… opportunities in disguise.

The second critical point is grasping what “proper time” means. The Greek term literally means, its own fixed and definite time. In other words, God has already set the harvest time for your project long before you even thought of it. It is a fixed point in time, and that point in time was set aside solely for that particular reaping! Most of us struggle with staying consistent because we usually can’t see that place in time.

Consider a farmer who plants in the spring. He knows the harvest comes in the fall, so he doesn’t agonize in June or July when his crops aren’t ready. He waits until the proper time, and continues to do what’s necessary to ensure a good harvest. The same is true with pregnancy. Even though most women get extremely tired of being pregnant, they don’t start to fret about going into labor until the end of the third trimester.

Just because the end point isn’t clear in your particular case doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. The simple fact is that God uses the Law of the Harvest to teach us faith, among other things. He allows us to see the order and set times in other things like farming and pregnancy, so we can believe there are also set times for the things we’re striving for.

If you combine what’s in today’s blog with my last blog (Plugging Into Joy), which talks about perseverance, you should at least be able to start to tackle the fizzle in your life. Just believe and go forward; it won’t happen overnight, but it will happen at the proper time!