The Blessing of Healthy Habits

A friend of mine recently had a serious cardiac episode. He was hospitalized for weeks. After this, he was put on bed rest and then went through therapy for several months.

He said to me yesterday, "Rich, I feel better now than I have felt in years. I had put on quite a few pounds. I was not exercising. But now I've lost weight. I'm riding my bike. I feel like God mercifully disciplined me to get me to radically change my habits."

We are hard-wired to form habits, whether for good or ill. A habit is what you automatically do, your natural response, without thinking about it. For example, you probably have found yourself making the wrong turn while driving to a new destination because that is the way you always turn for work. Or, if you rearrange your cupboards, it will likely be weeks before you stop opening the wrong door to get your favorite coffee cup in the morning. Without thinking, you may habitually turn the radio on in the car or your TV on at home in the evening. You may also habitually eat when you are upset or habitually play computer games when you are bored.

Have you noticed how difficult it is to do devotions or to eat right when you are traveling? You are out of your routine. Your habits are interrupted.

The apostle Paul tells us that sin can become habitual. In describing the lives of Gentiles who do not know God, Paul writes: Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.

Habits are developed by frequent repetition. The more we sin, the more we are inclined to automatically sin as our first response. But the converse is also true. The more we say "no" to sin, and "yes" to God, the more we are inclined to say "no" to sin, and "yes" to God.

Have you ever inventoried your habits? Has God put his finger on certain habit patterns in your life and said, "I want this broken!" Has God put his finger on other areas of life and said, "I want this habit established!"

Let me suggest three areas that the Holy Spirit may want to challenge you about as we begin a new school year.

1. Bodily Habits - How is your diet? Do you eat right? Do you exercise? About 25 years ago I discovered a secret to forming healthy habits of exercise. I found an exercise partner and we committed to drag each other to the gym three times a week. It is hard to overcome our inertia by ourselves. But as the writer of Ecclesiastes says: Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up! Find an exercise partner! Get a dieting buddy. Run, jog or bicycle with someone else.

2. Relational Habits - If you are married, do you have a regular, nearly inviolate weekly date night with your spouse? Do you have an individual date time with your children? Do you have calendared weekly times for friendships?

   I have found that our marriage grows whenever Marlene and I practice a weekly date night for a period of months. And conversely, we drift into our own separate worlds when our dating routine falls off.

   Take out a calendar and begin to pencil in some dates with friends, with your kids, and with your mate.

3. Spiritual Habits - One of the hardest things for us Christians to establish in our lives is a regular devotional time with God. The vast majority of Christians feel bad that we don't spend the time that we feel we ought with God. The same guilt applies to pastors. I have found that when my devotional life is working, it is largely because it has become habit.

What do you need to do to build a devotional habit?

1. A Conviction - You need a Holy Spirit-inspired conviction that you are missing out on God and you are missing out on the life God wants to give you. You must come to the realization that you simply must spend more time with God.

2. A Plan That Is Simple - Devotions don't happen when you try to be brilliantly creative every day. You need a regular time (a set morning or evening hour), a regular place (your dorm room or study), and a simple track to run on. For example, I used "Search the Scriptures," a simple book by InterVarsity Press, for years to establish my Bible reading habits. Many people have found Phyllis Tickle's "The Divine Hours" incredibly helpful in establishing a pattern of regular prayer and reading throughout the day.

   I have recently found the Anglican Book of Common Prayer to be an incredible boon to my own devotions. There are set prayers to pray each morning and evening. (Of course you can fill in with your own prayers.) In addition, you are taken through a cycle of Bible reading on a yearly basis and the book of Psalms monthly. But consider how your relationship with God might improve if you simply prayed this Anglican Prayer of General Confession each morning and evening:

   Almighty and most merciful Father, we have erred and strayed from Thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against Thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things that we ought not to have done. And there is no health in us. But Thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us miserable offenders; spare Thou them, O God, which confess their faults. Restore Thou them that are penitent, according to Thy promises declared until mankind in Christ Jesus our Lord. And grant, O Most Merciful Father, for his sake, that we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life to the glory of Thy holy Name. Amen.

Do you want your life to change? Consider the power of forming healthy habits.