Good Habits
One of my favorite parts of the new year is having a fresh start. Even though it is technically just another day it feels like so much more. It feels like we can finally make those changes we have been putting off. It feels like we can start some of those good habits that we just haven’t put into practice yet. We feel full of hope. Often we excitedly make our goals, yet start to not care about pushing through to reach them about only halfway through January. Starting new habits can be really tough.
When I think about new habits that are good for me spiritually I think about the need to have a better prayer life. I think about making more time to spend in God’s word each day. I think about making it a habit of reaching out to my friends or neighbors and telling them about the Gospel. The problem is often thinking about the need is where I often end. I know each of these habits, and many more I did not name, would be really good for my Faith and relationship with Christ. Yet, I still don’t always start to make a good habit out of putting them into practice.
I recently read the book Atomic Habits by James Clear. It is an excellent book that I highly recommend. It talks about how the smallest changes we make to habits in our life might not seem that significant. However, when you compile all those changes together it can make a huge impact on our lives.
Throughout the book he gives some really good advice on how to make good habits stick and how to get rid of bad habits. One that really stuck out to me is to not make the goal so hard that you don’t want to do it at all. For example, don’t start off by saying, “I would really like to read my Bible for thirty minutes a day and pray for thirty minutes a day.” If we haven’t been praying or reading on a regular basis this might feel hard to accomplish. Instead say that you will read one page a day and pray for 3 minutes a day. Those habits seem much more attainable. While that may not seem like much time in scripture and in prayer with God it gives us a starting point. Once we get in the habit of opening scripture and praying we will start to say to ourselves, “Hey, I’m already in scripture I might as well read another page.” Once we are in the habit of praying we will say, “I’m already praying I might as well keep talking, I’m really enjoying this time with God.”
I know for me in college I wanted to read the Bible through the whole way. To do that I made the goal of just reading one chapter a day. It took a while but I finally made it through all of scripture. Not only that, I also continued my habit of spending time in God’s word. After a while though, I did struggle to keep that habit going. So it’s not that we can just go autopilot once we finally get into the habit we wanted to create. We must purposely keep going.
Whenever I talk about spending more time with God I think it is always important to remind ourselves not to do it out of a feeling of legalism. We spend the time with God because we want to, not because we have to. I believe that we all have a yearning to spend time with our creator, we just sometimes have a lot of distractions that get in the way. So take some time at the beginning of this year and make it a goal to have a good habit of spending time with God in his word and in prayer to Him. Start small and watch it grow. You will be glad you did.
Joel Harper
