The thing about habits is that we think we need them. Whether they’re positive or negative, our habits are precious to us. We treat them with reverence in a way that says, “Don’t touch!” Really, setting them up as our gods. And subconsciously setting ourselves up as our gods, for we are the creators of our habits. In short, we worship our patterns because we worship ourselves.
Based on all this, I think it stands to reason that we need to fight against our habits. More specifically, against our perceived need for them. We must wage a war against the patterns we have elevated to a pedestal that is far higher than their worth. This is vital to our spiritual well-being as it is a direct assault on the prideful spirit we are all deathly prone to. It will take many hard-fought battles to win this war. But it will undoubtedly be worth it.
I have experienced my own hard-fought battles in paving a path toward victory in this war among wars. It’s not the only war I’m fighting, but it’s one I’ve gone on a long journey to get better at fighting. Before I describe my personal revelations along this journey I mustn’t forget to mention that, as usual, it is the Lord who has led the way on the way to winning this war. (Irrelevant, but important: My policy is that if I can’t, won’t, or don’t point it back to Him I shouldn’t say, do, or write it.)
Now the obvious target for me to address here is habitual acts of sin, clearly harmful addictions, and the like. And, yes, my personal journey of breaking the need for habit includes the battle to overcome these things, so everything that follows applies to those surface issues. But my focus is actually on something far more subtle and seemingly innocent. It’s the worship of our routines to the point of ritual, which adds to the root of the most dangerous sin of pride. It’s the all too pervasive idea that our pre-designed plans hold preeminence in our lives. Believing that our days should above all else be dictated by our schedules.
Don’t get me wrong though, routines are in themselves good things because they motivate us to live intentionally. In this sense, we do need them. The problem comes when our routines become so essential to our activity that we allow no room for interruption from them. Becoming this ritualistic results in being entirely self absorbed as you are then distracted from what truly matters.
Personally, strict routines are not something that I’m a fan of, I have to force myself to even make a skeleton of one. But, if I don’t put a basic one in place, I don’t get anything done and show up late to everything. So again, there is wisdom in the implementation of routine. Let’s throw that aside the rest of the time though. This is one of those areas of life where we seem to always talk about the benefits, but fail to discuss the potential detriments of its misapplication. Those misuses are what this is about.
There’s actually a reason for my personally natural dismissal of planning detailed schedules. It’s something that has developed in me throughout all of my life experiences. Through quite self-evident means, I have gained a firm understanding of just how difficult life can be. It’s just plain hard. Throw in sinful habits and it gets even harder due to their ugliness. Throw in incessantly repetitive routines and it gets even harder as they make things less enjoyable. Uncontrollable tragedy and sin are inevitably going to happen, so why add to your earthly misery by becoming a slave to your schedule or patterns? Therein lies the need to fight the perceived need of habit.
Despite my typical rejection of intricate routine, I too have fallen captive to the harms of overvaluing patterns to the point of ritual. In fact, the volatility of the following comparatively insignificant examples is what has led me to being so loose when it comes to planning out my day. And that’s not by personality, as you’ll soon see, but by the wisdom of trial and error. These lessons have been painfully learned, but I am grateful for their accruing to my living life as it flows.
I’ve got three different types of scenarios where this issue shows up in my life to share with you. I’m gonna start with the two extremely simple ones and then try to explain the somewhat complicated one. Just preparing you now, unless you’ve experienced the third one it’s going to be very foreign to you. I do not anticipate for everyone to understand it, but as I hold to my principle of transparency I’ve gotta include it.
First off, I have this tendency to get entirely consumed by what I’m doing or working on. So much so that someone can literally address me by name, I can acknowledge them with a look, and they can proceed to give me important information; then I nod and soon after realize that I have no idea what they just said to me. Almost like I’m unconsciously saying, “you’re important enough to me that I’ll show I’m aware of you, but not important enough to actually care about what you’re saying”. I don’t exactly feel that way, it just happens, and I know that’s what it implies. While I was writing part of this I was actually informed by my mom that she was leaving to run a quick errand, and it wasn’t until someone else showed up that I realized it. On the surface that’s just flat-out stupid, but at a deeper level it reveals a belief that my personal agenda matters more than anything else.
The next one reveals that very same belief in a different way. Again, I’m not one to thoroughly plan my whole day, but more often than not I have at least one main thing planned. And if that one thing I’ve been planning for and looking forward to all day falls through for whatever reason, it pretty much ruins my day. Whether it’s through poor communication or simply something else coming up, when this happens you’d think I’d lost the opportunity of a lifetime! And guess what, that’s usually not the case. When things don’t go according to my one tiny plan I can get super overdramatic, and that’s super not-okay! To the human mind this is totally understandable, but that behavior only produces bad fruit, so I’d like to get rid of it.
These two scenarios require only a passive approach to developing a routine, there’s no real scheduling involved. Even in their simplicity, these examples prove to have just as much potential to wreak prideful havoc. Because situations like these have resulted in some bizarrely unnecessary conflicts and/or arguments, I’m not too enthralled about putting a lot of effort into developing a precise routine. If I’ve meticulously designed my every move, how much more upset will I be if things go “wrong”? Make sense? I think it’s better to keep the plan as basic as possible.
The third scenario is a meticulous design that existed for quite some time in my mind and still takes daily focus to untrain. Before I explain this you need to know that one of the minor effects of DMD is some sensory issues that result in obsessive, compulsive tendencies. For me this has meant severe pickiness when it comes to the positioning of my body in my chair and of my clothes on my body. My inability in the past to be flexible when it comes to my desired patterns in regard to these things produced some of the worst conflicts of my life. For the longest time it truly was a habit that I believed I needed, and the negative outcomes proved it. This habit has been the hardest one for me to fight against, but the Lord has gratefully led me down the road to freedom from it!
I know the pain that can be caused by worshiping our routines and I hope that everyone can win this battle! Take the time to consider where you are allowing your plans, schedules, patterns, and habits to take control of you.
““Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?
“So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
“Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”
Matthew 6:25-34
