NEW HABITS: THE FLYWHEEL OF HOLINESS

The pioneer psychologist, William James (1842-1910), once said, “Habit is the flywheel of society.”  He meant that so much of life is driven by the huge gear of habit.  It is the aggregate of our established ways of behaving automatically without need of forethought.  You may laugh, but it’s how many of us get from 6 am to 9 am each morning.  Major changes in life may call for new habits.  Old ways are not always best ways, or worse, they can lead to disaster.  Here’s what I mean.  My parents were Salvation Army officers (missional pastors and administrators).  The Army moved them from appointment to appointment on average every 4.5 years.  This meant that as children we were often changing homes, schools, friends, and communities, and sometimes twice in an appointment.  Such change sometimes occasioned small disasters.

One disaster stands out from all the others in my memory for its earthy nature.  One of my brothers was only five years old at the time we made a major move to a new house.  At age five he had been trained to avoid bed wetting in the old house by making his own way at 3 am from his bed to the bathroom and back to bed.   His old habit worked well even when he did so when still partially asleep.  He would take X number of steps out of the bedroom, turn, Y steps down the hall way, turn and Z steps to “le toilette.”  You may imagine the disaster coming.  In the middle of the night in the new house, the little guy rose and took X steps out of the bedroom, Y steps down the hallway, and Z steps arriving at my father’s closet.  You guessed it.  A disaster unfolded too quickly to be arrested by a panicking father. You can imagine our father’s displeasure.  I can tell you he did not wear his uniform shoes to the office the next day.

From the earthy nature of that narrative, I hesitate to make the comparison to a new life of faith, but the truth remains.  When we find ourselves moving from one place spiritually to another, our new life calls for new habits not only for sake ourselves, but also and for the sake of others.  Old habits, friends, tastes, language, old haunts and neighborhoods and social life, old patterns of life, and former steps onto dark paths and into dark places occasion undesired outcomes. Old habits and dispositions are the reason for so much recidivism back into the old life.   New life in Christ calls for new habits of the heart, new priorities, new routines, and new ways of living.  A new heart and life surrenders old, dysfunctional, redundant habits and dispositions and seeks new, spiritually healthy ones.

New life means waking-up to pursue new ways and means of loving and pleasing to God.  The old ways and means no longer meet our deeper needs.  Frankly, the old habits displease God, because they fail in the face of temptation and result in sin.  The new means are transformational.  They are spiritually healthy habits of the heart:  time daily in the Word, prayer, thanks and praise, wholesome fellowship, music, and literature,  worship, and serving others.  Such habits mature and foster our desire and ability to love God profoundly and to love others as profoundly as well.  These are the habits that John Wesley called the means of grace, not our means, but those means by which God provides us with His grace.  His means make us aware of his presence and strengthens us in our faith.  Together, the practice of diverse means of grace comprise a new set of holy habits, a new flywheel of holiness in a Christ follower’s life.  Glory to God!

Teach me your way, O Lord and I will walk in your truth.

Give me an undivided heart that I may fear your name.

Psalm 86:11