Transparent Christian Magazine

Habits… Everyone has them; some good, some we’d rather be rid of. But even with this pervasive nature of habits, most of us have come to accept them as part of who we are, and that they help to define who we are to the outside world.You may be thinking of habits as a bad thing; Not necessarily. Our habits define who we are and how we react in virtually any given situation. In our social circles, we want and even expect our friends to accept us as we are, or as “the whole package”, warts and all, even as we inwardly know our own shortcomings.But we are missing the big picture about habits if we confine them to always being BAD. This is even more evidenced by the surge of books regarding our habits in recent years, such as Stephen Covey’s “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”. Society recognizes that our habits are the outline, if you will, for our lives to the point that we now know that changing our habits are what move us to where we want to be.All those “bad” habits that you and I have picked up over the years, whether it’s cursing at the first frustration that comes your way or smoking or drinking or ANYTHING that you feel reflects negatively on your Christian testimony, usually cause us to feel like hypocrites and undermine our “self-view”. This usually results in the kind of negative view of ourselves that hinders our ability to open our mouths and tell others about Jesus.God has placed us on this earth with the free will that we have, in order that we may freely and openly LOVE HIM and worship him. This same free will has allowed us to be enticed by things of the world along the way and chipped away at the purpose of God’s creation. Our “habits” get in the way, keeping our mouths closed when we should be speaking what the spirit moves us to say! But, “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” (1 Corinthians 10:13 (New International Version )

God does provide ways that we can both rid ourselves of these bad habits as well as incorporate new ones into our lives! To fully understand this, we need to look further into what creates a bad habit: A habit is any action that we have performed so often that it becomes almost an involuntary response. If we consider this habit to be undesirable then we may label it a “bad habit”. If you are a smoker, as I am (although I moved to a pipe some 20 years ago) you can probably remember the first cigarette you had. I know I do. Even many people strung out on drugs can recite to you HOW they got to where they are. Many “bad” habits often carry clear memories of their origins within us, yet we haven’t a clue how to get out of them. There is no magic pill to do so, but there is hope.

I know what you may be thinking: “I accepted Christ, I go to church, I pray, I have tried everything I know to break my bad habits and they won’t go away!” You’re right. They don’t. The addict that comes to Christ is still an addict. The person with a rage problem probably isn’t going to immediate become calm and rational. But in YIELDING to the spirit, we may find relief.

The first thing to realize is that the Blood of Christ paid the debt for your sins. Nothing you can do other than to accept that and believe in Him will save you. No amount of good works, perfect living or donations to charity will do more than that.

Second, realize that HE is the potter, you are the clay. In Isaiah 45:9, it reads, “Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker, to him who is but a potsherd among the potsherds on the ground. Does the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you making?’ Does your work say, ‘He has no hands’?”

If you have ever worked with clay, then you know what this means: For those of you who haven’t, it’s important to note that clay is dirty. More than dirty, it is dirt. Working with it means rolling up your sleeves and getting your hands into it. And it’s not automatically all soft and pliable either. You have to work it, push it, pull it and even beat on it a few times until it begins to YIELD (oops… there’s that WORD again!) Furthermore, after the potter FINALLY gets it into the shape he wants, it must go thru yet another subjective torture; the FIRING.

Not all pots do well even at this point. Some pots crack. Some develop unusual textures or colors or pinholes… you get the point. Even after all the love and energy put into them, pots can be imperfect. Such is the case with you and I, …and of course, our Habits. Through all these processes the master potter puts us, some of us will still retain some imperfections. Yet the Master has a purpose, even for these.

I’ve read that doing something regularly for 30 days will cause that activity to become habitual to you. There are a few things that you can create as HABITS in your life to become more of what God wants you to be or do in Him.

The first of these is PRAYER. Prayer should be a major part of our new habits, transforming confusion into clarity and suffering into joy. However, some mistakenly believe that God is somehow separate from us, off in heaven somewhere looking upon earth as a troublesome step-child.. Believing this, their prayers ask for favors, such as health, salvation, fame, victory or the winning lottery numbers. They use prayer in order to manipulate their God to work for their benefit. Wanting Him to play favorites, they beg to be blessed by Him at the expense of others. However, this attitude not only defeats the power of prayer but completely devoids it of all humility and rightness of heart. Jesus answered his disciples questions regarding how they should pray in Luke, chapter 11:

(I LOVE the way this reads in “The MESSAGE” version):

2 So he said, “When you pray, say, Father, Reveal who you are. Set the world right.

3 Keep us alive with three square meals.

4 Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others. Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil.”

He modeled this prayer for us as a way of telling us that when we pray to God, we should ask Him to handle every situation in the way that He deems best. The method that God chooses to handle something is His will, and Jesus was teaching us in the Lord’s Prayer that we should always pray for God’s will to be done in all situations, and to PLEASE save us from ourselves!

So set yourself a time to pray, every day. When you do it is not so important; If you’re a morning person, do it in the morning. If you’re much more able to do so at night, do it then. Just DO it.

Every day for 30 days.

Then start over.

Read the Word.

Start your own venture of digging into the Word and see where it leads you. It doesn’t matter if you start at the beginning and read all the way through or the other way around. You can even hop around a bit, (and believe me, when you get that thirst for knowledge inside of you, it happens) or you can even get your pastor to recommend a decent study guide to help you.

For thirty days.

Then start over.

There are so many wonderful new habits you can build into your life! How about 30 days of forgiving others, or Thirty days of letting him lead? Just remember:

Do it every day.

For Thirty Days.

Then start over.

As you do these things, you will begin to see new aspects develop in your life, and not only on a spiritual level. Notice, however, I didn’t say to attack the “bad” habits in your life, one at a time? That’s because I know from firsthand experience, the more you practice the NEW habits, the old ones get pushed out of the way.
What is 30 days in the broad scheme of your life? A trickle of time. But what if you planted a seed in that trickle and it grew to be a mighty redwood tree of spiritual health whose branches and roots grew their way through Prayer and the word of God?

In service of the King,

Tom Whiteman.

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Tom has a radio show called Gospel Music Roundup where he finds GREAT music from all over the country and puts it together in a Podcast format. His website is on my blogroll (to your right). Check out his site, download some great music and throw him a comment!
Tom wrote up a BIO for Transparent Christian Magazine! Thanks Tom!!BIO:Tom Whiteman is a sinner saved by grace and by the blood of the Lamb!

Born July 10, 1959 - died to sin forever!

I knew God had a calling on my life at age 10. I struggled many years to effectively run from that calling, feeling inadequate and under-equipped, but my real problem was malnourishment from not relying on the Bread of Life and Meat of the Word. I attended San Jose Bible College, Served on the air as a DJ for a small Christian station in the Mojave desert of California and as Host of a weekly Southern Gospel Radio program called “Gospel Music Roundup”, which is now available as a Podcast of the same name, presented by yours truly.

I married my beautiful wife 24 years ago and along with our youngest son now reside in Jasper, Missouri, and attend the First Baptist Church of Oronogo, Missouri. I welcome any and all comments and prayer requests at gospelmusicroundup@yahoo.com and invite you all to listen to some great gospel music at http//gospelmusicroundup.org!

In Service of the King
Tom