The Life You Get Stuck With
Imagine yourself five years from now. Picture your age like giant birthday balloons hovering in the room. Now add five more years—what number do you see? What version of you do you picture?
Here’s the truth: most of us overestimate what we can do in the short-term and underestimate what we can do in the long-term. We think we’ll change overnight, but the reality is transformation usually comes through slow, steady consistency. And if we’re not careful, the “life we get stuck with” won’t be the one we hoped for—it’ll be the one we accidentally built .
Romans 13 tells us: “Don’t get so absorbed and exhausted in taking care of day-by-day obligations that you lose track of the time and doze off, oblivious to God… Get out of bed and get dressed! Don’t loiter and linger, waiting until the very last minute. Dress yourselves in Christ and be up and about!”
That’s a wake-up call. Because here’s the bottom line: the ways you let in become the ways you are set in.
We all have “ways”—how we react, spend, text, fight, or forgive. Sometimes those ways come from our parents, sometimes from culture, sometimes from our own habits. The longer we keep repeating them, the more they stick. Going through the motions isn’t always bad—if they’re the right motions. The problem comes when we’re stuck in the wrong ones.
Paul’s urgency in Romans reminds us that life is short. Scripture calls it vapor, grass, a flower that fades. We feel invincible at 17 or 24, but blink and decades pass.
That’s why every choice matters. Future you isn’t some mysterious new person, it’s just current you, exaggerated. If you’re kind now, you’ll be kinder then. If you’re harsh now, you’ll be harsher then. Time doesn’t change you; it reveals you.
So if you don’t like what you’re getting, change what you’re doing.
Here’s where the hope comes in: small, consistent actions compound into massive change over time. Just like dominoes that increase in size until they can topple something as tall as the Empire State Building, your daily habits multiply.
Albert Einstein once called compound interest the eighth wonder of the world. The same principle applies spiritually. Ongoing consistency will always beat short-term intensity. Reading two chapters of the Bible a day doesn’t sound like much, but in five years, you’ll have read through the entire thing three times. Small choices, stacked daily, build an unshakable life .
At the end of the day, the life you get stuck with is the life you’re building right now. Like your mom used to warn when you made faces: “Don’t keep it up or it’ll stick that way.” That’s true spiritually, emotionally, and relationally.
The good news? You get to choose. You can let old patterns harden into regret, or you can build holy habits that lead to joy, purpose, and impact.
Five years will pass before you know it. Make decisions now that your future self will thank you for. Because the life you get stuck with can be the life you love, if you choose to get dressed in Christ and live alert to what God is doing.
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