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03 May 2017

122/365

Good habits protect what’s most important. They keep us on the track of perseverance even when we don’t feel like persevering. They help us access the channels of God’s ongoing grace in the times we need it most (often when we don’t feel like it), and so preserve and keep our souls. Good spiritual habits keep us in God’s word, and in prayer, and among God’s people, even as we ride the emotional ups and downs of life.
- "God Will Hold You Through Your Habits," David Mathis, Desiring God Ministries

I am a creature of habit, and nothing says that more than Tuesdays. I wake up. I run. I go to my Bible reading plan. I read a chapter in a book. I go over my memory verses. (I drink a latte.) I shower. I set up tables at church. I pray with my friend. I prepare dinner. I go to church at 4:30. I make coffee. I pray. I teach. 
Almost every single week. Almost without fail.

Sure, some of that is just routine. But the most important elements of that daily regimen are ingrained deep in my soul. And honestly, those habits, the simple discipline of doing the same thing day after day, week after week, were great grace to me when we went through the rocky waves of the past winter, when moment to moment was to do the next thing. They remain so even now when I wake in a funk. The habits of the Word and of prayer and of gathering together, they persist as more than ordinary grace. 

Mathis writes, "Habits of grace for hearing God’s voice in his word, having his ear in prayer, and belonging to his body help us get our eyes off ourselves so that we might regularly taste “the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:8). They help to make persevering in the faith not be about our technique and actions, but about knowing Jesus." No treasure could be greater.




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