My faith journey has been a long, difficult road. I started out strong as a kid, but in my teen years I began a prolonged detour that lasted into my 30s.

One of my personality traits that has made this journey difficult is my fear of large tasks.

Whether it is home repair, work projects or self-improvement, I look at undertakings that require many steps and many hours of work, and paralysis sets in – keeping me from taking the first step.

Or I may take the first couple steps but leave the job undone. My wife loves it when I do that with home projects.

When it came to my faith, I saw the ideal state that I wanted to attain; I saw my broken state.  There was a light year between the two, and part of me thought, “I will never get there.”

But when I finally fully committed to this journey, I completely changed my view of the destination.

I used to look at Christianity like it was joining a karate dojo. I thought you mastered certain disciplines, demonstrated that mastery to your sensei and were awarded a new belt until you worked your way up to black belt status. There were so many belts between white and black that I couldn’t muster the energy to work on the first discipline.

Now I see my commitment to this journey much differently. To me faith is more of a compilation of many little choices that I make each day.

Every day I face dozens of decisions. The instant I wake up, I am presented with choices: Do I hit snooze? Do I exercise? Do I read the Bible? Do I go into work early? Do I write a blog?

Some of the decisions I face are significant, while most seem pretty mundane. But they all have the power to create change. All of my choices create some ripple in the universe, big or small, that will affect me and those around me.

What will I do next? What will I say next? What thoughts will I allow to take up residence in my mind? When I break my journey up into small decisions like this, faith seems a lot less intimidating.

I will be the first to tell you that I don’t always make the best decisions. Some of the paths I take are selfish or lazy. I don’t always think about what the impact will be to my wife or my kids.

Sometimes words escape my mouth that I wish I could take back. Sometimes I lose sight of the bigger picture.

But I choose more right paths than wrong. As a result, the overall trajectory of my journey is positive. I am continually moving towards growth even with all the backward steps I take. The man I want to become isn’t some far-off destination. He is here now – being formed one small decision at a time.