There is a reason why you are taught to make your bed when you are young. Reasons why you are given work responsibilities around your house as a youngster. There is a reason you are taught to brush your teeth. There is a reason you go to church every week. There is a reason you are taught to listen to and obey your Dad and Mom.
These are all habits that will help you to live a fulfilled and responsible life. The longer I live, the more I see the connection between where someone is today by looking at the habits they have formed over time. Our habits either become our best friend or our worst enemies. These deeply ingrained habits effect our lives today, even though they were established long ago.
If you think an adult suddenly knows how to work with consistent effort ...that is not true. They learn it at a young age by cutting the lawn or carrying out the trash. They learn it by consistently making their bed. They learn a habit of laziness and ways to just get by by doing just that over and over period of time.
You may wonder why so many employers today are pulling out their hair to find good employees. You may wonder why so many entrepreneurs work with so many quitters and with so many excuses for time off. It all boils down to the habits one establishes at a very young age. Even on the mission field, you can see how deeply ingrained habits need to be addressed.
Romans 12:2 shows how things can be changed. It says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”
I see it in the prisons, school, jobs, churches and on the mission field. I have watched families suffer financial reversals because of missing work. I watch as their work and spending of habits make it so they will never be able to get off the treadmill, all because that has become a habit in their lives. I have seen people move from one menial job to another and then another job, because of habits they established early in life. I have seen people quit everything, even their marriages, because of a habit of quitting.
I have watched students take what they thought was the easy way out over and over, only to find life hits them head on once they finish school and they are lost because their habits have upended them.
I have watched as some are in the habit of buying and never saving, losing their homes and struggling with financial issues over and over because of habits that started early in life. I have watched success on the mission field be slowed down and even stopped because of the habits of those leading the work.
Spiritually, we have all filled our minds with so much garbage from the junkyard of the world that it doesn’t even seem to matter anymore.
So many in our world today never see change in their lives and can not figure out why. It boils down to formational habits. We all must fight against being conformed to the world. Stop blaming others and take responsibility for YOU, your business and the ministry.
If your in prison it’s probably your fault. How much did you get away with early in life? What habits did you allow to grow that put you there? For others, did you get out of work and never suffer the consequences over and over... is that a habit you developed? Did you get away with what you thought at the moment was a successful lie and now face the issue of catching up? Did you hide behind others and think you were so clever, only to find now that habit is bringing pain into your life? It is each of our responsibilities before God to clean our own dishes. The point is, personal responsibility is the starting point to making changes in habits.
Habits can be great tools for change and thank God we can all start today to build new habits into our lives. God is not finished with any of us.
Start Today to make new habits - you will be glad you did!
Sit down with a pen and paper and analyze your life. Ask yourself some deep and probing questions.
Ask God for His insights and to help you discover His very best in your life. Expect those special “a-ha moments.” Start to change just one habit that is keeping you from becoming the person God has made you to be.
Get Godly counsel to help you stay accountable.
Then write out some clear objectives and habits you truly want and need to change. Start a journal of your life and open your Bible.
Reflect honestly what is going on inside you and what you are taking responsibility for.
The most important habit of all is summed up in Matthew 6:33. “Seek ye First the Kingdom of God and His Righteous, and all these things will be to you as well.”
Note: I have habits I too must take responsibility for and this in no way written to imply I have arrived. We will all be working on habits for the rest of our lives as we grow to be more like Christ!