The Practice of a Making a Habit

If you haven't read this post from Ann Voskamp at A Holy Experience, you should!

Forming habits does not come easy for me. I need to not be a perfectionist and give up as soon as I deviate from what I wanted to do. I also have to not get smug about what I can accomplish and set out to do too much. And the sin I see in both of these? Pride. I keep seeing the sin of pride in my life.

Today I read Numbers 12:3 that, "Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.".

Back to habits.... Because I fail so often, I just keep trying.

I've tried a number of record-keeping forms, but they haven't really worked well because I don't use them consistently. In trying to form a habit, adding the record keeping of the habit just makes it tad more difficult for me. (I really am a baby in this, despite my 55 years!)

Oh, I have also learned that condemnation doesn't really help. If I start telling myself how bad I am or how much I messed up, it just begins a slide into self-loathing. Guess who pays for that? I do, usually by expressing anger inappropriately (to the ones I love the most) and with a splitting headache. And my family pays. The ones I love the most.

If I (or the enemy) keep me either prideful or self-loathing, I do not get to experience God's forgiveness, the love of Jesus and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

So, for me, the practice of making a habit, is just that. I practice and I keep practicing and I keep practicing and very slowly (so slowly that I do not see it), the thing becomes a little easier to do and I notice when I have missed it.