Job 17:1
My spirit is crushed,
My days burnt out,
Only the grave awaits me.
My friend gave me the book Atomic Habits. It was right when I was struggling to understand my ADHD diagnosis and trying to put a system in place to be productive. I read it at breakneck speed with the intent to go back through it soon. Soon turned out relative as I just now finally started the second pass six months later. However, now seemed like a good time to incorporate what I see in these writings to help it all sink in.
‘Spirit’ was also ‘breath’ once. ‘Crushed’ was also ‘broken’, ‘corrupt’, ‘ruined’, and ‘wrecked’.
‘Burnt’ out was also ‘extinct’, ‘cut short’, ‘extinguished’, ‘run out’, ‘dimmed’, and ‘flicker out’.
Nothing significant varied in the last stitch although the words jumbled a fair bit.
The first chapter of the book introduces the idea that small changes in habit can have a big impact on your life. It’s pretty simple, but as I have learned, sometimes it takes a few times for something new to sink in. We know Job was upset when his stuff and his kids were taken from him, but it really got his attention when he got sick beyond anything anyone seemed to know. One of the topics in the book is the author’s route to becoming a well thought of writer. He didn’t set out with that goal, but he wrote habitually and got better.
The characteristic of Job that I sometimes forget is that he is suffering when he speaks. My image is rarely a shriveled old man covered in sores lying on top of the dung ash heap trying to be heard. I often picture an actor with a booming voice in the middle of a natural amphitheater. But this verse hits me again with his actual condition; practically dead, just waiting for death itself, and it not coming. Some people have habits like making the bed as soon as they get out of it. Not because a made bed is anything, but for how it makes them feel to achieve it. I struggle with wanting to do something just to feel good.
The most important thing I learned in this first chapter was to focus on not the goals of being better, but on the system to get better. I want to be fitter, wiser, and a million other adjectives that really boil down to being more like Christ. I seriously doubt he developed the habit of overeating every chance he got. I have been at the precipice of making my routine for months, and only now as I try to implement it slowly am I seeing that it isn’t about being rigid, but about being consistent and flexible. Fasting is probably the best way to get one of my issues under control, but figuring out how to not want to overeat is probably the long-lasting impact I need. I have to remember that my goal is to become more Christ like not for my own good, but to glorify God.
Written 8/27/25, Posted 9/13/25, Job 397/1070