Instilling Good Habits

It’s hard to believe that the season of Lent will soon be upon us. Lent is that 40 day period that Christians observe to mark the season that Jesus fasted in the wilderness before beginning his public ministry.

It’s often used as a season for penitence and reflection in the build up to Easter. Sometimes people give up something, or they take up a practice that they think might deepen their spiritual life. There is great value in such things and experts reckon that, if we practice something regularly as part of our daily routine, it can become ingrained in our psyche as a new habit.

In recent years, I can think of a couple of examples in my own life that I think have been helpful for me.

A few years ago, I had the pleasure of accompanying my son and some of his friends from his climbing club on a trip to Innsbruck which houses the biggest climbing centre in Europe. One of the other Dads on the trip was a great advocate for stretching as a means of staying flexible as we get older in life. He encouraged me to download an app on my phone called ‘Let’s Stretch’ which gives 5 stretching routines. I try to do one each morning just after I get up, and try to do a few other exercises to accompany this stretching routine, and it takes about 10 minutes. I don’t feel like the most flexible man in the world, but I think it has helped me quite a bit to do this routine over the past couple of years.

I read a wonderful book some years ago during Lent called ‘Living like Monks, Praying like Fools’ by Tyler Staton. It was about establishing spiritual disciplines in our ordinary lives, like Bible reading, prayer, silence and contemplation. It encouraged you to try to be silent with a Biblical text for one minute per day. When you had mastered that for one minute, you were to try to move up to 2 minutes and keep going until eventually you are still for 10 minutes, and allow the Biblical text to touch your heart and your life in the quietness. It is a practice essentially about being still in God’s presence, not trying to persuade him to listen to you or accomplish anything, simply an opportunity to sit and be loved in His presence. There’s a lot of grace and understanding around how long it may take to build up your threshold to be still, and some practical tips, like leaving your phone outside the room so you are not distracted by notifications and so on.

As I am a keen reader, I try to keep an extra book in the car for unexpected little daily windows of opportunity to read.

If I’m on a school run and arrive early, or if someone is late for an appointment, I can take in a few pages. I’m currently reading a wonderful little book in the car called ‘Healing Words’ by Brother David Jardine, who used to regularly lead a healing service in our church through Divine Healing Ministries. It’s a simple book, the chapters are short and there are so many great nuggets of wisdom and stories from Brother David’s personal experience. I’d highly recommend it.

Perhaps, there are helpful habits you have introduced into your life over the years. Please feel free to share them in the comments below (Facebook). If introducing any new habits into my life there are a few important questions I always ask myself?

Does it require much in terms of time or materials?

Given the demands of my life right now, is it doable, or will I just get frustrated and annoyed because it won’t be possible in the long run?

Is it worthwhile or likely to generate good fruit in my life as I take it on?

The blog and podcast will be taking a break next week, but look forward to speaking again soon.

Much love to everyone,

Jono.

Listen to the latest episode of ‘Bitesize Chunks of Faith’