Habits are interesting little phenomena. They are formed (sometimes knowingly and sometimes not) by repetition. Do anything enough times and it will most likely become a habit. My daughter just walked out of the room we were both in and shut off the light--leaving me in the dark! She didn't do it intentionally, she didn't think about it, she just did because it was--you guessed it--a habit.
Now, had she stopped to think, I'm pretty sure she would not have purposely left dear old dad in the dark of night. But she wasn't thinking about that. She was focused on where she was going, what she was going to do next, and just automatically hit that little switch on her way by. She didn't even realize it, at least not until I said something.
That's a habit, and our lives are full of them. My wife moves the kitchen faucet to the middle of the sink every time she walks by because, as a child, their faucet tended to drip and they were trained to make it drip on the divider of the double sink so that the sound of drip, drip, drip didn't resonate through the house--especially to the bedroom of her parents. Now, we've been married 21 years, and in all those years our kitchen faucet has not dripped. But guess what my wife still does!
In the same way, I'm pretty sure my son cannot watch a movie without eating popcorn, even if we just left a restaurant, because that's what you do at a movie. And our scrappy middle child cannot, simply can not do anything without making it a competition, with herself if no one else.
These are not bad habits necessarily, but certainly they are not necessary habits. They are just rote reactions we learn over the years. Some are good, like washing your hands after going to the bathroom, or picking up after yourself, or an untold number of other good and ordinary things we do every day.
Those are not the kind of habits I find myself battling against. I only wish it were so simple.
The habits I find myself struggling to break are ones of the mind--what I think, how I think, and why I think it. My habit is negativity.
I'm a glass half empty kind of person. You may call me a pessimist, but I prefer realist. That glass may be half full, but I know for sure it's half empty. And of course, things could probably be worse, but I'm 100% positive they could be better. It's not as cold as it could be, but it's not as warm as I'd like it. You get the point.
I'm not quite Grumpy from the Brothers Grimm tale of Snow White, but I'm no Pollyanna either. I tend to see the darkness, the flaws, the potholes, the things that could go wrong. It's hard for me to not let one bad apple spoil the whole basket. I'm more like the Solomon of Ecclesiastes who said, everything is meaningless and a chasing of the wind, than I am like the Solomon of Proverbs who said, Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.
Now Solomon was a wise man, and he said both of those things. And I believe that he was inspired by God, so both are true. The difference is, one is an observation (everything apart from God is meaningless), and the other is a way of life (trust God, and everything will work out). My habit has been to confuse the two.
I'm inclined to see the meaninglessness and futility of life Solomon observed as the only reality. It's a habit, one a psychoanalyst may be able to explain, but I cannot. All I know is that I expect the worst, see the bad, and often miss the better things in life because of it.
That, my friends, is what we might call a bad habit. A really bad habit.
Because that's not the world we--including myself--live in.
We (and I'm talking to you and me), live in a world where there is hope.
Solomon spoke of hope in that if we trust God and not ourselves, He will lead us, and where He leads us will be green pastures and still waters (Solomon no doubt learned that from his dad). Paul spoke of hope in Ephesians 1:18-19 when he said, I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. . . "
The hope to which he has called us. Riches and glorious inheritance. Incomparably great power. Salvation. Redemption. Forgiveness. Love. Security. Safety. Provision. The list goes on and on.
Hope. Hope. HOPE! Not negativity. Not futility and meaninglessness. Not the potholes and the flaws and the darkness but the light and the love and the hope that is Jesus Christ. That is what I should tend towards, that is what I should see, that is what I need to train myself to remember and understand and apply to every thing and every day. That glass may very well be half empty, but as Christ made water to wine, He can certainly fill it up to overflowing.
So this habit, this rote reaction of negativity is now my enemy, my nemesis. I doubt very much that I shall soon be walking around spouting rainbows and unicorns, but I shall strive to no longer walk under a storm cloud of doom and gloom. As I have trained myself to not move the kitchen faucet away from the middle of the sink, so shall I, trusting in the grace and power of God, train myself to not dwell on the negative.
Depending on who you listen to, it takes anywhere from 21 to almost 300 days to form a lasting habit.
Today is day one for me.
What about you?
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