Time to Check Our Habits!

Well, I guess I am finally forced to admit that summer is over. Things are settling down into a Fall routine. The back-to-school clothes and supplies have been bought, the kids’ bus schedule has begun to normalize, and we’ve gotten used to the alarm going off at the outrageously early hour now necessary since my daughter started high school. (Why is it that high schools start earlier than elementary schools?? The elementary-age kids have been up for hours trying to find something to do while the high schoolers straggle out to the bus half-dead.)

Even if you don’t have school age kids, Fall usually means a change in routine—whether you’re beginning to put on the push toward the end of the fiscal year, taking on that home improvement project that didn't get done last Spring, or dealing with the boss who has come back from vacation all charged up with new ideas for you to implement. Or maybe you're in school or taking a night course. Whatever the change in routine—even a subtle one--it is an important time to review our habits towards God. If we don’t take time to readjust our spiritual habits to the new schedules forced upon us, it’s amazingly easy to let spiritual priorities slide. We’re liable to wake up around New Year’s thinking, “I wonder why I never seem to follow through on my New Year’s resolutions to grow spiritually? Guess I’ll just resolve for the tenth year in a row to start having a Quiet Time.”

I think this constant review as circumstances change around us is in some sense what God means in the New Testament when He tells us to be alert or what He meant in the Old Testament when He frequently told His people to “Consider your ways.” He is saying, “Hey, stay awake to what’s going on in your life. Don’t let My things slide.”

Look at the September habits in the sidebar. For those of you who read by email, the habits are:
--Praying for three minutes three times a day
--Reading the New Testament for 7-8 minutes a day
--Reading the Old Testament for 2 minutes a day
--Turning off as much extraneous noise as possible throughout the day

How are you doing with these? Are your times with God getting squeezed out by the busy-ness of Fall? Did some of your habits (like mine) slip during the lazy days of summer and you need to reestablish them? Just take a couple minutes to think about your new schedule, commitments, and pressures and figure out how to keep your times with God a priority.