Max Lucado tells the story of a little boy who fell out of bed early one morning. When his mother asked him what happened, he answered, 'I don't know. I guess I stayed too close to where I got in.' Too often, it is easy to do the same in and with our faith and spiritual formation. There becomes an inner temptation that pressures us to stay where we got in and never move. Quickly, without warning or awareness, we can become stagnant and immobile in our growth walk with God, self and others. This often comes as a result of the 'time crunch' we find ourselves potentially falling prey to our schedules and Rolodex. Living in Pearland with an active family that includes a wife and three boys, serving as chaplain of one of two level one trauma hospitals in Houston, and pastoring a growing congregation in Victoria...can easily heighten an already typical Christian challenge.
So often I can feel as if I am in the daily and weekly crunch all by my virtual self, asking this proverbial question to a listening audience of one. It can often seem like you are the only one with deadlines to meet, obligations to fulfill, children who want you undivided attention, a spouse who needs QT and a myriad of other strings and people pulling on you like a puppet master on a stage. This can, no doubt, lead to feelings of despair, frustration, inadequacy and even fatigue. As a Pastor and Chaplain, I am often confronted with this daily 'crunching' challenge. How can I as a pastor give my all on a Sunday, serve in a growing congregation, minister to countless patients at a level one trauma hospital in Houston, be a supportive dad to a 4th-grader, a kinder student and a 2 year old who all have collective and individual needs, love and support my wife, and also prepare a lesson before Wednesday, and a fresh sermon before Sunday? Umm....exactly. In the midst of all of the aforementioned, I am also a vessel who needs to be filled by my Maker through private devotion and spiritual formation. As with the little boy in Lucado's story, all of us must face the challenge of what the late E.K. Bailey terms going ‘farther in and deeper down’ in our growth walk with God. This requires that we develop some 'Holy Habits' that become a part of our regular routine, in our pursuit of personal spiritual formation.
I choose to refrain from the more exhaustive approach here. There are many tools in discovering how to read through the scripture in 60 days, etc. I simply think that this may be a place to start, in cultivating habits that are holy and beneficial.
I call these the ABC's for building Holy Habits:
First, Accept the reality of your limitations. Helen Keller is noted to have said, "Face your deficiencies and acknowledge them, but do not let them master you."
Second, Build a library that is universal. One of my favorite scriptures is 2nd Timothy 2:15 which says, in the ESV, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.”
Third, Commit to renewing your spiritual focus. Colossians 3:2 exhorts us to, “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.” Dr. Ari Kiev of Cornell University observed that from the moment people decided to concentrate all their energies on a specific objective, they began to surmount the most difficult odds. He concluded, "The establishment of a goal is the key to successful living."
Fourth, Devote to personal worship. First Corinthians 10:31 says, “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” William Barclay quotes William Temple, the renowned archbishop of Canterbury, as defining worship as quickening the conscience by the holiness of God, feeding the mind with the truth of God, purging the imagination by the beauty of God, opening the heart to the love of God, and devoting the will to the purpose of God.
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