My habits were strangling me. No, I don’t mean addictions. I mean routine patterns I had developed for my quiet time. For a number of years previous to this point I set my goal to read through the Bible each year. But eventually my consistent habit of daily devouring chapters of the Old and New Testament left me dry and spiritually listless. My habits had finally begun to work against me.
My finely tuned habits for regular “devotions” served me well through high school, college and even into missions. They kept me on track, provided regular spiritual input for the routine traumas of life, and periodically gave me a kick just where and when I needed it! But the time came, when my well established routines actually stunted my growth. And that is what I’ve been pondering - this strange phenomenon of how habits, routines, and even traditions can fail us and actually work against us.
Routine habits can become cumbersome. Okay, in some things I am a routine junkie. If something is worth doing, it is worth a good routine. Routine junkies are tempted to keep fine tuning their habits until the task requirements become so daunting that the routine collapses or they begin to avoid the task for self preservation. The habit can relate to having a quiet time, regular prayer time, answering email, preparing a teaching, or even exercising. I can be an expert at making anything more and more complicated!
For a while, I was getting up before dawn every morning for my quiet time. Coffee at hand, Bible spread out on my desk, computer open to commentaries, and I was off and running. I wrapped up my quiet time with an extended time of praying my new found insights into my mission setting. Sounds great (and it was awesome!) But after a while, I dreaded the early hour and couldn’t quite stir up the enthusiasm for extended prayer times. My spiritual passion was still there, but my fine-tuned routines had become too tedious. Another routine bit the dust…until I established my next routine.
Routine habits can actually prevent improvements. When I’ve established a noble habit, it is profoundly difficult to dislodge that fortress of efficiency! It’s mine. I created it. It has served me well. How could I possibly change it? Enter, my quiet time that was killing me. No matter how good it was to read my Bible through every year, the ease of my daily ritual delayed even thinking about improving the quality of my devotions. It was convenient to drag myself to my chair, open my Bible, read through my assigned chapters, and check off my list. Done for the day!
My well established routines were like wall paper covering cracked walls. Until I began peeling back the rituals, I was unaware of the emptiness that had crept into my relationship with God. And when I really saw the cracks, I was willing, even eager, to let go of my devotion rituals. Only then did God lead me down a new path of Bible reading and journaling that led to deeper reflection on his character and to learn about myself.
Routines can be very helpful in establishing patterns for Bible study, communication, church attendance, exercise, healthy eating, or building relationships. But when good habits begin to become cumbersome, ineffective, growth-stunting, or block needed change, I am left with one option. Let God challenge my routines and direct uncomfortable changes that will move me on to deeper growth and deeper levels of yieldedness. I can’t afford to let my good habits work against me.
picture from pixmac.co.uk
I’m not really a dog person, but I accidentally volunteered to feed my mother-in-law’s dogs twice a day when she was going in for surgery. And here I am again months later, now serving as the “expert” in dog feeding. One of her dachshunds is 16 years old, gray hair and all. As far back as I can remember Freddy has always yapped his sharp bark the whole time his food dish was being prepared. When I wasn’t the dog food expert I could go outside to escape. But now that dog food preparation is my job, I decided something had to be done about that yapping. But the question is, can a 16 year old dog learn new tricks? I discovered that, yes, an old dog can learn new tricks.
Well, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about flexibility and change. There are major changes in my life as we’ve uprooted from our South African home to return to the States. And instead of driving for days to visit our missionary friends we will have to be flying in across the oceans. These major changes are difficult enough, but I’ve discovered that sometimes it is much more difficult to make the smaller changes in our lives. Changing habits or the way we’ve always done things is much harder.
In moving into my mother-in-law’s house to help care for her I ran smack into my own set patterns that I was unaware of in my own home. I had well-honed patterns for meal preparation. I liked to leave the house to arrive at the exact time for church, not 30 minutes before and not late. And I allowed myself only a few minutes to prepare things before leaving. Works for me! But my patterns did not merge well with my mother-in-law’s lifestyle or needs. I needed to make some changes in how I did things but found just how decrepit and inflexible I felt. Was I too fossilized to change?
When I recognized that my inflexibility was in direct conflict with my desire to be godly and bring Him glory, my training began in earnest! The next element of training was serious prayer. And the Master Trainer took over and started putting me through my paces, including daily opportunities to make choices based on my mother-in-law’s needs rather than my own habits and desires. I’ve been able to see some of my patterns changed and I’m slowly learning “new tricks.” Just like Freddy, I’ve had days of relapses in which I just wanted to be me, or should I say “the old me.” But persistence is winning the day. I never want to get too fossilized for change. I’m so grateful that the Master Trainer is always ready to teach me “new tricks.”
OK we’re three weeks into the new year. Time to take inventory of those lovely New Year’s resolutions I decisively jotted in my journal. How am I doing so far? Now where were those things I wrote out? In fact, what were they again? Vaguely it’s coming back…
Maybe you’re like me. New Year’s resolutions are great to help identify changes I want to make in my life. Commendably, I’ve suspended frantic activities long enough to recognize the need to change and paused long enough to want to do something about it. But if my insight and desire surface only on that one day at the beginning of the new year I’ll sadly join the ranks of petrified characters who dutifully mount their soap boxes again at the end of 2009 with regret and recycled resolutions.
So here I am in danger of getting off track with my well intentioned and Spirit-prompted changes! I’m pouring into my work with fresh vigor and passion. The pressing emails, phone calls, reports, planning, and errands are taking over my waking hours. Oh, did I tell you about my increasing interest in the finer points of writing? Oh, yes, did I tell you about joining Facebook that consumes valuable minutes during my coffee breaks?
Enough. What can I do to sharpen the focus and possibility of the success of my proposed changes for 2009? First of all, find them. Get them out and put them some place where they’ll stare me in the face each day. For me that’s my Power Point prayer list. For others it’s their refrigerator or desktop.
Secondly, make them a matter of prayer. How obviously simple and yet so easily forgotten. Prayer provides a daily reminder and is the given means of involving God in the process of my change. Through prayer I invite his grace, strength and Spirit’s promptings as I begin the daunting task of disrupting well established routines and habits that have made up my previous behaviors and responses.
And thirdly, involve someone else in accountability, someone who is willing to risk challenging me to keep on the progress track and willing to call me out when I run straight back into hobbling in the old ruts of habits that I vehemently deplored last December. For me that’s my husband. I give him the right to challenge, badger, question, and encourage me to keep on track and to stand beside me on 31 December with a banner of victory and a fresh list of resolutions for the next year. How about you?
My habits were strangling me. No, I don’t mean addictions. I mean routine patterns I had developed for my quiet time. For a number of years previous to this point I set my goal to read through the Bible each year. But eventually my consistent habit of daily devouring chapters of the Old and New Testament left me dry and spiritually listless. My habits had finally begun to work against me.
