The Dismantling of Habits

 

It was time to put my big girl pants on, yet again. Ten months into working with my counselor, she informed me that she would be moving out of state in a couple of months. She had already made plans to transition me to another professional within the practice. I couldn’t help but feel discouraged. Starting over was an exhausting thought, but what else could be done? “It is what it is,” I coached myself. I decided to be grateful for the therapeutic support I had received right off the cusp of our excommunication.

 

In our very last session together, I met with both therapists to solidify the handoff. I felt like quite the patient as I sat on a big comfy couch across from two mental health professionals. We went over my goals, which included a lot of head nodding on their side of the room and a lot of explaining on mine. Towards the end of the meeting, the new counselor left, giving me a chance to wrap things up with my soon-to-be former counselor.

 

As I sat there, not knowing how to do any of this in a professional way, I thanked her for all she had walked with me through. After she conveyed her hopes for my future and affirmed my progress, she reached behind her and grabbed a white box. When she took the lid off I could see various colored rocks with words printed on them. She then asked me to pick out one rock to represent the work I had done in the past year. 

 

The pressure to find a rock that was meaningful was immediate. What if none of them resonated? What if all I thought I had accomplished was survival? Would there be a rock with the word, “Survive” on it? I tossed the smooth rocks around, reading different words as I saw them, “Peace”, “Kindness”, “Beauty”.

 

Nope, those weren’t a good fit.

 

I didn’t know what I was looking for quite frankly, so I continued to shuffle them around until I had read almost every single one. There was one more stone in the middle, at the very bottom that I hadn’t read. I raked through the box one last time to get to it. I picked it up and held it. I was overcome with emotion as I repeated the word in my head.

 

I found it. I found the word. This word was not like any of the others. 

 

Let’s rewind a bit. For many months leading up to this point, my focus had been to heal. Within that space, I started seeing some obvious changes in myself. Changes like…

 

• Not wanting to listen to Christian radio 
• Reading my bible only when I felt like it
• Not praying before meals
• Not forcing family devotional times
• Not requiring us to go to church on Sundays
• Not requiring my kids to be involved in midweek church programs
• Aversions to being in groups of Christians

I had been surprised by some of these changes. I couldn’t put my finger on exactly why they were happening, but I was fully aware they were there. Many of the shifts in my behavior were tied to the Christian norms and disciplines that were encouraged and taught in the church. I knew that much.

 

This all happened very gradually. For months I had tried to push through and keep the usual wagon going; the wagon of Christian expectations that existed in my mind. I made sure my kids watched a Sunday morning service online if we weren’t able to make it in person, we prayed before meals even when our minds could barely conjure up any words we could think to say to God, and I pushed for our children to be in a kid’s church program even though they weren’t building relational connections with anyone. More and more I felt as if I was going through the motions.

 

Eventually, my strength ran out. Amanda’s sheer willpower, which I pridefully thought was limitless; had hit its limit.  I didn’t care about jumping through the hoops anymore. Any willpower I had left went to late night feedings, early morning feedings, homeschooling, school pick up and drop off, parenting challenges, and the juggling of PTSD-like episodes between my husband and me.

 

However, in the midst of grief and loss, it was hard to see that I was being gifted something when the perceived spiritual guardrails of church routine abruptly stopped in our lives.

 

For decades, I was used to fulfilling my “good church member” to-do list. 

 

Give money regularly.

Meet with a small group every week.

Serve at least once a week.

Give up time as a family so that your spouse can serve at least once a week.

Bring the younger kids to the children’s program once a week.

Bring the older ones to youth group once a week.

Spend time meeting requirements for any program my children participated in.

Make meals for those in need within the congregation.

Sign up for extra local service initiatives and projects.

Help with the church decor through the holiday seasons.

 

The list could go on and on. But what happens when all that is taken away, not to mention the relationships that went with it?

 

Slowly but surely, I realized that I was being given back a sense of autonomy. As the shock wore off over the months, I found that I now had an opportunity to make choices for my life and family. What I originally couldn’t imagine living life without now started to taste like freedom.

 

I had spent my entire adult life juggling constant requests and responsibilities; ping-ponging between my family’s needs and the asks from the church. Running from thing to thing. What should I do next? Who needs what from me? Although I loved and cared for anyone I helped and served, I was literally exhausted! It seemed like church leadership had a never-ending list of what I should be doing with my time. There was no room, let alone energy, for the things that I wanted to do. 

 

Now, if you think the moral of the story is to leave the faith and embrace a me-first lifestyle, just let me cook, as my teenager would say. 

 

At this point in my faith, I did not feel as though I was abandoning God, but rather, I regularly basked in His patience, grace, and non-legalistic truths. From time to time I was drawn back to reading His words and I was very much filled up by it. He knew what we had been through. After all we had seen and experienced in the faith community, pushing myself or my family to just do what we’ve always done was not kind or authentic.

 

So I sat there on that oversized couch, lost in the word that had triggered such a visceral response. It encompassed this gnawing feeling that I had been having for months but hadn’t been able to decode. 

 

The word was, “Desire”.

 

As soon as I read it, it became crystal clear what God had been doing in my heart. The message He had been sending me in a series of ways was,

 

“Stop doing. 

Stop performing. 

Rest. 

Live in my grace.

Now………..

Do you desire me?

Do you want to talk to me? 

To read my words? 

To worship me?”

 

My heart is still tender to this miraculous moment. The moment when God reached down into my dutiful heart and asked, “But do you really want me?”

 

The rhythms and duties of church life were so many that the lines of desire and discipline had become very blurred. I was stuck in the rat race of a cycle of to-do’s and I was tired. The year before I had been healed from living out of shame when it came to my relationship with Christ, but now I needed to be delivered from another thing, my habits. The things that I did just because I had always done them or because someone had told me to.

 

In Revelation, chapter 2, the Church of Ephesus is being corrected for something very similar.

 

In verse 2 it says, “I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance.” 

 

Sounds like great attributes? Am I right?? 

 

But just a few verses later, it says, “Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the thing you did at first.” 

 

Full stop. What does it mean by “do the thing you did at first”? Doesn’t that imply some kind of…doing?? It must not, because their hard work isn’t cutting it. It’s not the most important thing when it comes to pleasing God. In fact, they are warned of their lampstand being removed because of this offense. Scholars are not unanimous on what the lampstands represent, but it is clear that it’s a serious loss. One translation is that the removal would mean they’d lose their ability to reflect Christ to the world, in essence, removing their right to be a church.

 

Hard work and diligence, aren’t these supposed to be good things? I think they are, but what I wonder is if the church of Ephesus had grown into a church of habits and without knowing, had eventually lost their desire. Their actions were no longer driven by their hearts. They were driven by the neuro pathways that had developed over the years combined with some elbow grease and a “can do” attitude.  

 

This is a bit of a tricky space in the American church and probably elsewhere, but I’m going to talk only about what I’ve seen. Many, not all, but many American churches are built on paid pastors, who make ministry their means to provide for their families. Tell me, how does one acquire and keep such a position? Aside from the degrees and diplomas they may hold, many pastors win the title due to their sheer ability to keep grinding it out. Some of this can look like casting vision(a church term for determining goals), growing the numbers, and guiding and feeding the flock through their teachings year after year after year. 

 

This is not an easy job. With the demands of this position, is it possible that we have elected the Marthas of the faith to manage and lead our religious system? And if we have, how have we protected them from becoming what this passage warns about?

 

This passage tells us that it’s possible that ministry-driven, diligent, vision-striving Christians could be void of an authentic love for Christ. Chills. Chills for me. Chills for you. Chills for the church and especially believers who have made religious customs their vocation. 

 

And as congregants, how does one keep an accurate pulse on their own love and desire for God when we are so exhausted by the constant checklist the “churched life” provides for us?

 

But if we’re honest, it’s not only church chores that keep us running from thing to thing, it’s a million other things too.

 

In a book I highly recommend, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, John Mark Comer, pastor and author says:

 

“Corrie ten Boom once said that if the devil can’t make you sin, he’ll make you busy. There’s truth in that. Both sin and busyness have the exact same effect–they cut off your connection to God, to other people, and even to your own soul.”

 

Perhaps this is where the idea of a sabbatical came from. A time of rest from constant ministry work, not an extension of it. From my experience, many churches don’t plan for a yearly sabbatical for their elders, pastors, and leaders. Many can’t afford it in more ways than one. 

 

But if they can prioritize it for their lead pastor, then what about all the other ministry staff members or regular volunteers? Should it also be a priority for their spiritual walk to ensure they get a time of rest from their responsibilities as well? What if there are not enough volunteers so that there can be breaks in service? Is the vitality of those volunteers’ love for Christ a concern for anyone? And if they were given time off, who’s to say they wouldn’t fill it up with countless other activities?

 

Slowing down is not our practice. Our practice is seeing the tangibles, not the intangibles. The engagement numbers going up in bible studies, now that’s a measurable figure. But time taken to relish in God’s presence, his goodness and grace? There’s really no possible way to measure the dividends on that, even though we all know, they’d be there. 

 

Now hear me out just a little bit longer on a couple of things. 

 

Please know that I’m not saying that there is no place for structure, healthy habits, and discipline. I’m very aware that some tend to lean hard into their own desires and not enough into practicing discipline. 

 

So where do we go from here?

 

Before implementing spiritual habits into our daily lives, let’s think about the following:

 

• Do I have time in my schedule to prioritize restful time with the Lord? 
• Evaluate your convictions for your spiritual disciplines. Why do you do what you do? Is this a requirement you’ve made? Or your church has made? Is it from God?
• Consider ordering your life as a whole for times of less hurriedness and busyness. If you realize you are in a constant state of hurry, be willing to see and make changes when you have overextended yourself.

It was within a week or two after this counseling session that I did a topical study on the various well-known disciplines of the faith. I wanted to study what the Bible actually said about scripture memorization, Bible reading, worship, prayer, church attendance, etc., and come to my own conclusions before inserting anything back into my or my children’s lives. This time helped me intentionally choose what to participate in based on my convictions, not what anyone else expected of me. I was surprised at what I found. 

 

Although I would tell you in the midst of that past life that I was living a happy and fulfilling life, there was something I had lost along the way. Having this time living outside of church life norms has taught me a lot about God and much about myself. I found the places where I had been practicing my faith out of habit, not desire, which has refreshed my love for Christ.

 

What about you? If all the activities and responsibilities were taken out of your life, what would you choose to be a part of your life? Would you choose to draw near to Him? How would you do it? Is there anything that you are participating in now that is stealing time away from having a restful time with the Lord?