For about three years now, we have had a ritual. Every other Monday night I would sit at the dining table with the laptop and Steve would alternate between the pantry and the refrigerator telling me what we needed. Then we would plan meals and make our grocery list. Tuesday morning we would get up, go by and get a sausage biscuit, drive to Sumter and do our grocery shopping, and have lunch in the big city. We’d be home by 1:30 or 2:00 and unload the car and put away groceries. Steve would head for the golf course and I would cram like crazy for the Precepts class on Tuesday night. Tradition. Habit.
Several weeks ago due to budget constraints, the Shaw commissary which is always closed on Mondays began closing on Tuesdays as well. Steve plays golf on Wednesday and Friday; but our Thursdays were still open for our bi-monthly supply run. We tried making our list. We tried planning our meals. But our grocery world had been throw off-balance and we discovered that old habits really do die hard!
As much as we like to complain about it, structure, schedules are valuable in our lives. School children begin to get cranky toward the end of the summer. We depend on the habits that are the familiar.
I recently finished reading “Humility: True Greatness.” C.J. Mahaney addresses an issue that I have had for some time in his chapter, “As Each Day Begins.” I have already confessed my need for early morning caffeine and my reluctance to wake up other than in a slow, undisturbed manner. I have the habit of beginning my day in an irritable mood. I can stand at the open back door listening to the birds all I like, can even say out loud “This is the day the Lord as made; I will rejoice and be glad in it”; and then turn around and continue my grouchiness. It goes like this, according to Mahaney: “As we stumble through our morning routine, we’re not directing the thoughts in our mind – we’re simply at their mercy. We entertain complaints about what happened yesterday or worries about what’s coming today. We look in the bathroom mirror and assess the damage, then brood over how we feel. We’re not in charge of our thinking. We’re just there.”
Listen to what was for me a life-changing, habit-changing passage from Humility: “Purpose by grace that your first thought of the day will be an expression of your dependence on God, your need for God, and your confidence in God. Sin – including especially the sin of pride – is active, not passive. Sin doesn’t wake up tired, because it hasn’t been sleeping. When you wake up in the morning, sin is right there, fully awake, ready to attack. So rather than be attacked by sin in the morning, I’ve chosen to go on the offensive. I’ve chosen to announce to sin, ‘I’m at war with you. I know you’re there, and I’m after you.’ From the moment I awake I’ve learned to make statements to God about my dependence upon God, and in this way I’m humbling myself before God.”
Basically I’m at war every morning until I’m speaking truth to myself. I’ve heard that it takes 28 days to change a habit and I’m well on my way. If you walk by my house on an early morning and look in at the back porch, you’re likely to see me with a cup of coffee in hand and a smile on my face.
