Habits can be the worst. I grew up eating a bowl of ice cream after dinner every night. I kind of thought that’s what everyone did. As a skinny-as-a-rail kid engaged in all types of sports, that habit didn’t catch up to me until my freshman year of college when, with free access to a frozen yogurt maker and an assortment of unfairly delicious baked goods, I began to pack on the pounds.

Habits can be the best. Waking up every day by opening your Bible, going to the gym after work, or sharing family meals can be formative of a healthy life. They set on auto-repeat the beneficial things you want to be doing. They create productive ruts that can even reshape your desires.

In the last post, we began considering how we can start to form healthy habits by reconsidering who we believe we are. Habits confirm the type of people we’ve already committed to becoming.

In this post, we will consider the fact that healthy habits can replace negative ones. Erasmus once said, “A nail is driven out by another nail; habit is overcome by habit.” New routines can be strong enough to oust old practices. Addiction experts encourage those quitting destructive habits to replace them with positive ones. Find the trigger and change the response.

In The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg writes, "when a habit is formed, the brain stops fully participating in decision making. The patterns we have unfold automatically.” Colloquially, we call this “being on autopilot.”

So, what new habits should you choose? 

Health gurus argue about the best ways to maximize your workouts. But everyone agrees that working on your core muscle groups has a multiplying impact. You won’t maximize your results if you go to the gym and focus solely on minor muscle groups.

Here are some core habits that you might consider:

Physical: sleeping (I view this as much more significant after reading Why We Sleep?), eating healthy, and and working out.

Emotional: journaling, bonding over meals, developing two or three deep friendships.

Spiritual: praying, scripture reading, attending church, serving, tithing, participating in a small group, making disciples.

Justin Whitmel Earley’s The Common Rule is one of my favorite books on spiritual disciplines because he gives the reader practical steps to implement the rhythms of those disciplines. Earley says that we shun formation and liturgies because it feels like they impinge on our authentic selves and our freedom. In response, he asks, “What if the good life doesn’t come from having the ability to do what we want but from having the ability to do what we were made for? What if true freedom comes from choosing the right limitations, not avoiding all limitations?”

He explains that freedom came when he embraced his limitations: "I had lived my whole life thinking that all limits ruin freedom, when all along it’s been the opposite: the right limits create freedom.” Have you found that living your best life springs from a life lived within proper limits?

Earley contrasts the Garden of Eden and Bethlehem. In the Garden, Adam and Eve rejected God’s authority and attempted to free themselves from their limitations, but this resulted in death. Meanwhile, Christ constrained himself to flesh for our salvation by emptying himself. “We, for our own sake, tried to become limitless, and the world was ruined. Jesus, for our sake, became limited and the world was saved. “

Earley suggests that we consider implementing eight habits on two continuums: love God and love neighbor on the horizontal axis and embrace and resist on the vertical access. His daily habits are kneeling prayer (embrace, love God), one meal with others (embrace, love neighbor), one hour with the phone off (love neighbor, resist), and scripture before phone (love God, resist). His weekly habits are Sabbath (embrace, love God), one hour of conversation with a friend (embrace, love neighbor), curate media to four hours (love neighbor, resist), and fast from something for 24 hours (resist, love God).

Glenna Marshall in Everyday Faithfulness also reminds us of the importance of our habits being oriented not merely to ourselves, but to our neighbor.

Developing these healthy practices will involve intentional planning, time, and effort. “Practicing spiritual disciplines may feel like work at first. Establishing new habits always presses against our apathy in uncomfortable ways. But one day your heart will catch up to the regimen.” We have to look to Christ to see why the work is worth it. “We need the compass of eternity to direct our perspective.” Additionally, 2 Corinthians 9:6 reminds us “The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.”

Our faithfulness begets faithfulness. Marshall encourages us, “Apathetic heart? Draw near anyway. Dull, dry Bible ready? Hold on to your confession anyway. No desire to go to church? Meet with your local body of Christ anyway. Obedience will feed your faithfulness, and perseverance will have its blessed effect in you.”

May our lives grow in obedience and faithfulness. May the nails of righteousness drive out the nails of sin in our lives.

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Photo by Fausto Marqués on Unsplash