from Sony Pictures
No, this may not qualify as unusual, but some time back my email account got hacked. A friend forwarded an email he had received “from me,” with a link that obviously wasn’t from me. So, I changed the password that I’d kept for several years (OK, I made some minor, rememberable tweaks) into a longer more exceptional one. MUCH harder to remember. Much harder to hack.
But for the next several weeks, 90% of the times I signed into my email account, I automatically used the old email password. Habits die hard. Before, I never needed to think; I habitually entered the correct password. Easy-peasy. Then I had to put my brain into action.
Habits can be helpful. My winter morning routine is to pull myself out of bed, stagger into kitchen to turn on the coffee, head back through the hallway to turn on the thermostat to warm the house, then on the bathroom for my morning ablutions. They’re both ready when I am. No thinking required. Once I woke an hour early, didn’t want my wife to wake to stale coffee, and skipped that stage. But along with the coffee maker, I also forgot to turn on the thermostat. Not thinking was not so helpful.
Although usually convenient, habits can hurt us. Like my password. Like the coffee. We develop such an ingrained pattern that we don’t have to think. Sometimes, that causes us to lose. We build a habit of not thinking. Of not being fresh. That same dynamic operates in the spiritual realm.
Some spiritual habits benefit us—they keep us in the routine of building intimacy. A regular devotion time can do that. But they can also keep us in a comfortable rut that prevents us from trying new paths that might work better. More significantly, they can also perpetuate patterns of acting and not thinking that bring damage.
Jesus used a parable of wine and wineskins that continues to haunt me, “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the old skins would burst from the pressure, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. New wine is stored in new wineskins so that both are preserved” (Matthew 9:17, NLT). Think of the wineskins as the forms and behaviors that worked before. They once were new and supple and effective.
But new wine—God working in our lives to make us more godly—is too active for old forms and habits. And we run a great risk if we allow what once was an effective new skin to continue with the same forms and habits. Salvation is an ongoing process, where growth continually requires new forms and habits. Until they become traditions where we have no need to think.
If God is moving in us and changing us, we must be open to fresh ways that work with our new growth in knowledge and maturity. Yes, the new forms, the new wineskins, must match scriptural commands.
May we follow Jesus in fresh ways, ones that match where He is leading us.
Kick Starting the Application
What spiritual habits have you accumulated? Which bring benefits? Damages? How did you slip into them—intentionally or just by doing it? Do you need to change some habits? How do you plan to do that?
I’ve also determined to keep a greater distance from some temptations. So far, I like the growing intimacy with God. Funny how those two are connected!