Habits

   The intense sun shines down as we trek across an open meadow.  The sun causes the autumn leaves to shimmer in the breeze, punctuated by the cool darkness of the evergreens mingling with the gold.  The whole scene unfolds before us and it causes the heart to skip a beat as we take in the amazing spectacle that the Holy has put before us.  The fragrance of the leaves and drying grasses fills our souls with joy to be alive and experiencing the soul of God!

   Thoughts arise  as we chat about various things, some earthly things, some eternal things.  How do we form habits?  Why are some of our habits good, while many are less than admirable?  Does it matter in the whole scheme of things?   

   I have in the last few months, been very interested in my own habits and am not particularly proud to  say that I have harbored some rather bad habits that have had a very definite adverse influence on my life and those habits were built over my entire life.

   Back in January I became involved with a group called Weight Watchers.  I wish I could say that I didn't really need to be in the group, but . . . alas . . .  I joined because the leader of the group was a friend, but I really did not think that anything much would change.  But I was wrong because I learned to my astonishment almost immediately that my eating habits were terrible.  There was little discipline in the matter.  I went home and began working the program and the results were amazing.  Almost nine months and 71 pounds later I have changed many things and not just food things, but life things.  My lifestyle is different because I think about things to do with eating, and I don't mean I sit and dream about eating, but I carefully consider what is good.  I have learned it takes work.  I have never minded working hard, if I know what to do and I didn't.  But since I learned I realize it has taken a lot of work and the changes are lifelong changes.

   My problem was bad habits and they were learned in childhood!

   Just recently we enrolled in a class called Financial Free University.  Finances has always been an issue with me.  I never learned what to do with finances.  It was like a foreign language to me and I just pushed it all aside, leaving it to someone else and there is no telling how much money I could have saved if I had not been so frightened and completely illiterate in things of financial stewardship. Anyone could have told me anything and I would have said, "Fine, whatever you say!"  I knew what I was going to find out last week when we went to the first session.  You got it!  I learned immediately that I had been living with extremely bad habits in things of finance and money and to make things different I was going to have to abandon those bad habits and make further changes in myself, changing habits that had been formed in childhood.  Am I blaming anyone?  Of course not!  Am I too old to form new habits.  As long as I am breathing and have a heartbeat, of course not!

   How many areas of our lives could be more meaningful and productive if we changed our habits, our lifestyle.  God has put within each of us God's Spirit!  The heart that beats within us is attuned to the heart of God because it is a piece of the heart of God.  We are made in God's image.  God desires that we should be all that we have potential to be.  It is God's pleasure to give us the keys to the kingdom.     I have learned that accepting this gift begins by discipline and making changes!