So many ways to serve each other

When our younger son, Jacob, was an intern at Resurrection last summer he was invited to attend the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit. All of the speakers were inspiring, but he was so impressed by James Clear, author of the NY Times Best Seller, Atomic Habits-An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones that Jacob started a reading group to review the book in his Delta Sigma Phi fraternity at K-State last fall. With that endorsement, I recommended it to my Men’s Group and we just wrapped up the study last week.

Aside: My new neighbor lamented that he had developed a habit of sobbing uncontrollably every time he flew on a plane.  I said, “That’s okay, lots of people have anxiety about flying.”  He replied, “Yeah, but it freaks out my co-pilot.”

Mr. Clear suggests that small habits make a difference & that getting 1% better every day can change your entire trajectory. Further, he contends that we can change our habits if we emphasize or change our identity to sync up with our new habit. Finally, Mr. Clear lays out 4 steps to create a good habit:

1. Make it obvious
2. Make it attractive
3. Make it easy
4. Make it satisfying

So, let’s say we realized that as a Christian it would make sense that worshipping God should be an essential part of our faith walk. What if we wanted to create a habit of worshipping God, not just on Sundays, but make it part of our weekly routine? What might this look like?

One easy/attractive habit that our Men’s Group suggested was to offer a breath prayer to God 5x per day. Just one sentence saying, “Thank you God  ______.”  I selected 5 times per day as the ideal habit because working in operations of the natural gas industry, I download a report 5x per day that gives me an instant “report card” telling me what is flowing or not flowing as desired. Obviously, this instant feedback has its pros & cons. I began the habit of doing a quick breath prayer of gratitude before opening the report, because on those particularly irksome days when the “report card” looks grim, I tend to flashback to 6^th grade when my teacher, Mrs. Gladys Waldoch, would grade our daily essays. She always graded them during our reading time & always in alphabetical order. Hiding behind my book, I would surreptitiously track whose paper she was grading. When she’d get to my paper, I’d hold my breath & then wince in horror as she’d wield her gigantic, blood red marker like Zorro & leave my pride & joy looking like it had just returned from Gettysburg. (Meeting her several years later, I learned Mrs. Waldoch had a wry sense of humor &, knowing I was watching her, may have hammed it up just to get my goat. Well played, Mrs. Waldoch!)

Another appealing habit that we considered was to set aside a few minutes during our commute or while brushing our teeth or getting dressed to listen to a different religious-oriented song each day of the week to praise God. My playlist last week included the following tunes: Glen Campbell’s “I Knew Jesus before He was a Star,” Resurrection Choir’s version of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” Dr. Cameron Smith’s “How Great Thou Art,” a classic rendition of “The Doxology,” Christmas at Resurrection’s “Little Drummer Boy,” & Paul Robeson’s “Who’ll be a Witness for my Lord?” (This habit of honoring God sets a remarkably different tone for the day.)

Aside: Two old codgers were gossiping about their wives’ annoying habits.  One gent said that he resolved the irritation of his wife clicking her fingernails on the table whenever they played cards, by telling her, “You know, I think it’s kind of seductive when you click your fingernails on the table.”  Presto.  She never did it again.

Finally, realizing that the Old Testament is filled with feasts & celebrations, we suggested that we could set aside 1 meal every two weeks to be a celebration of God’s blessings. It doesn’t have to be a fancy meal; it could be a simple meal to celebrate another week of being gainfully employed, or the blessings of friends, or even the KC Royals’ current season. (Serve hot-dogs & put on a Royals T-shirt or jersey & a simple dinner turns into a memorable banquet. And since we serve worshippers who don’t live in the Kansas City area, feel free to substitute your favorite local team or other success story at your banquet.)

However we opt to do it, let’s start creating new habits that make the worship of God the focal point of each week. The best time to start a new habit is today.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get ready for my early morning work-out: I get up at 4:00 a.m., eat a raw egg, sprint for 1 mile, take an icy-cold shower, & avoid caffeine all day. (Wow. Mr. Clear would be amazed. How long have you been doing this? – Editor.) I start tomorrow!