Why Habits?

Does God mandate praying three times a day or reading the New Testament for a specific number of minutes per day? No. Definitely not. And you may well think I am being trivial or overly rigid to suggest that we mandate a structure like this for ourselves.

The thing is, most of us need to set up some sort of parameters for Bible reading and praying if we are ever going to get around to doing them. We have so many other things to do and we are not really all that good at making constructive use of the time we have left over. But once we have followed the admittedly man-made and artificial structure we have imposed on ourselves for awhile, Bible reading and prayer become a habit and much easier to make a part of every day. We begin to see changes in our way of life and in our thinking that are exciting and keep us going. Eventually we look back and say, “Wow! I had to force myself to pray for two minutes three times a day. I wonder why I thought it was so hard back then? Now I can’t imagine getting through the day without praying.”

Think about it this way. If your 5-year-old came to you and said, “I want to be a concert pianist when I grow up,” and this was a goal you thought worth achieving, what would you do? Would you say, “Hey, good luck with that. When you can play Beethoven’s Fifth let me know.” No. You would say, “OK. You know it’s going to take years of practice. Let’s start with a half hour a day.” Since your kid is only 5, you’d probably soon find out that he’d do much better with two or three practice sessions a day, each limited to 5 minutes. And many days even those short sessions would be a struggle. But eventually, if the child is destined to be a pianist, the practice sessions would expand, your child would fall in love with the piano and piano playing would become a major part of his life. Looking back you would both laugh to think that his brilliant piano career began with struggling to find the time and self-discipline to practice for 5 minutes a couple times a day.

The point, of course, is that a child does not become a concert pianist overnight. Nor do you and I become avid prayer warriors or Bible scholars overnight. But you have to start somewhere and, although they may appear ridiculously small or overly rigid, developing daily habits is a good way to get to where you want to go.

Habits for February: Pray for a couple minutes as soon as you wake up and before you fall asleep each night. Pick one additional time during the day when you can pray for 3 minutes undisturbed and do it every day. Read the New Testament for 7 or 8 minutes each day.