Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Healthy Habits
Mark Daniels posted a sermon on habits. It's great, read the whole thing. I want to concentrate on one illustration:
I tend to "blame" the Holy Spirit for showing up when I didn't want to, but some, including pastors, have said, "Nah - just habit." How about this - The Holy Spirit is in and works through our habits. Yep - he's not always tongues of fire and miraculous healings. Sometimes He is just annoying habits.
In Screwtape Letters, Lewis talks about the fact that some times God leaves us standing on our own becasue what He really wants is our total devotion, not some devotion He fills us with. I don't think He leaves us though, He leaves us with ours habits.
“You know what I say then, Mark?” he asked me. “I tell them the same thing my father-in-law told me fifty years ago. ‘I’m not going to preach to you,’ he said. ‘But do this: Make it a point of worshiping six Sundays in a row and see if you even want to miss it on the seventh Sunday.’”There really is something to that. I have told the story before and it bears repeating. There was a time in my life when I resolved to be done with church, and yet every Sunday morning, despite my best intentions, I found my but in the pew. Eventually, the dryness left my walk with God and church again became a joy. I do not think I would have ever excaped the dryness had it not been for the habit of going to church every Sunday.
Louis told me that since he had taken his father-in-law’s challenge, he hadn’t missed a single Sunday. That holy habit had cultivated closeness to Christ and Christ became the center of his life.
I tend to "blame" the Holy Spirit for showing up when I didn't want to, but some, including pastors, have said, "Nah - just habit." How about this - The Holy Spirit is in and works through our habits. Yep - he's not always tongues of fire and miraculous healings. Sometimes He is just annoying habits.
In Screwtape Letters, Lewis talks about the fact that some times God leaves us standing on our own becasue what He really wants is our total devotion, not some devotion He fills us with. I don't think He leaves us though, He leaves us with ours habits.
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