As I was enjoying my quiet time one morning, these words jumped off the page: “Get your life in line with what you believe!”

James, the oldest half-brother of Jesus was essentially telling everyone in the second chapter of his book that faith without works is dead. If you really have faith, then your actions should line up with what you believe.

Let me explain in simple terms.

If you have faith that a chair will hold you up, then you sit in it. As a result, your actions line up with what you believe.

If you have faith that your car will get you to work, then you will get in the car and drive it to work. As a result, your actions line up with what you believe.

If you have faith that that the lawn mower will cut your grass, then you will put gas in the lawn mower, pull the string, and start cutting the grass. As a result, your actions line up with what you believe.

The common theme: ACTION

I know these examples are very mundane and routine. But they point to a fundamental and obvious theme: you take action in order to get what you believe.

Now let’s make it a little more personal.

You want to leave your job because it is not what you feel you are called to do. You believe God has called you to do something else and has told you to move.  However, you stay at your job and complain that God hasn’t provided a way out or you say His will has not become clear to you.

Instead of having the simple faith of above with the mundane things, we overthink and worry and fear and wonder and come up with excuses to the point that it paralyzes us. We don’t act!

James says plainly, “show me your faith WITHOUT works and I will show you my faith BY my works. The one who does nothing is still in the same place they were last year waiting on God to give direction. The one who moves to higher levels because they took a step of faith.

They acted.

Their actions lined up with what they believe.

This struck a chord with me as my actions have not been lining up with what I believe. There are many things I am to accomplish with one of them being to write a book. I have been talking about it for years. I have started a new chapter many times, but never completed them. I have started this blog, but have not been consistent with writing.

I let busyness, social media, reading, cooking, helping with homework, travel for work, errands, volunteering, writing for organization’s newsletter, and many other GOOD things on my to-do list keep me occupied such that I didn’t have time to write my book.

I finally had a wakeup call within the past couple of months while doing some self-reflection.

Why could I write 250 words in less than 10 minutes for a newsletter that probably wasn’t being read by most of the 2000 people in my organization but could not find the time to do that for my blog or my book?

I have the ability but it was not lined up with the right opportunity or belief. I believed I didn’t have time to write, but that simply was not true.

When the words are in me, it takes me less than 30 minutes to write 500 words. That is one page single spaced or two pages double spaced!

It was time to line up my actions and beliefs.

A couple of women I met for the first time a couple of weeks ago challenged me to write at least 500 words every Saturday for either my book or my blog.

When I accepted the challenge and sat down to write on my first Saturday, I wrote 561 words in 30 minutes!

When I sat down to write the next Saturday, I wrote 507 words in 30 minutes.

I am getting ready to embark upon my next Saturday. I wonder how many I will write this time.

Yes, this is a new challenge, but I am enjoying the feeling of accomplishment. I am enjoying the feeling that I can write and that the words do come.

I just had to make a decision to act!

When I acted, the strength to write came. The words came. The next thing you know, over 500 words came.

A funny thing happened.

I started believing in my ability and as a result, my confidence soared.

When I started seeing that I could write 250 words in 10 minutes, I asked myself why couldn’t I set aside 30 minutes to one hour one day per week to write.

So I did.

I am not finished, but I am enjoying the feeling of accomplishing the small goal of writing just 500 words.

My actions and beliefs are lining up…slowly… but surely… because I chose to take action.

What do you need to do to make your life line up with what you believe?

What do you need to act upon?

Don’t wait until you are motivated; that will never come.

Make the decision to act and watch things start to line up.

Line It Up!