Habits Always Frame Our Day
by Thomas B. Grosh IV, D.Min., CMDA Northeast Regional Director
"Our lives are something like a jasmine plant, and our days and weeks are something like the trellis. At best, we're made to grow upward, blossom beautifully and fill the earth will all the rich fragrance of God's uncountable glories. Yet we are fallen. We are twisted. But that doesn't mean we don't grow; it means we grow sideways in ways we weren't meant to, often twisting into something that kills and hurts those around us…
Building the trellis of habit is a way to acknowledge the good ways God designed us as well as the ways the fall has broken us…This begins with framing our days in love, and that begins with the words of prayer."- Justin Whitmel Earley, The Common Rule: Creating Habits of Purpose for an Age of Distraction.
Introduction
Habits to resist busyness and the demands of technology (cultural, familial and workplace) motivated people to engage the class I am teaching on Justin Whitmel Earley's The Common Rule. As in Our Habits Form Us, I challenged the participants to
Find an accountability partner, i.e., if one is lacking.
Consider whether one agrees or disagrees that true freedom is not the absence of any limitations, but instead the presence of the right limitations.
Explore how one resonates with the author's story.
Observe and reflect upon one's habits and write down a previously unnoticed habit,
If you have not already done such, I encourage you to establish these building blocks. Then take six minutes and 29 seconds to hear Justin cast a vision for Kneeling Prayer.
Questions
How often and in what manner do you pray?
What kind of habits-for better or worse-are framing your day?
Reflection
Justin's insights regarding the first words of the day inspire me to give Kneeling Prayer Three Times a Day a try.
"While I've been practicing some version of morning prayers my whole life, they radically changed when I got a smartphone. My smartphone exacerbates my tendency toward self-centered or legalistic morning prayers. Why? Because, of course, my phone is the portal through which the chaos of the world reaches my half-asleep heart through the pesky thing we call 'notifications.' This inevitably begins my day with all that I need to do and all that I've failed to do.
Our phones-and their programmers-are happy to set our habits for us. They would love to speak the first words of the day, and they usually do. Our phones-and whatever has come through them-thus shape the first desires of the morning and order our first prayers for us."
Next Steps
Join me in the trial and error of
Shaping first desires,
Maintaining proper desires mid-day, and
Finishing well.
I appreciate the author's recommendations to:
Write out some short prayers.
Set reminders at morning, noon and night for kneeling prayer.
Practice the habit of kneeling prayer.
To begin the journey, below are prayers provided by Justin. When opportunity presents itself, find a roommate (or your spouse if married) to pray with in the morning and at bedtime, as well as a colleague to pray with at midday.
Morning: Spirit, I was made for your presence. May this day be one I spend with you in all that I do. Amen.
Midday: Jesus, I was made to join your work in the world. Please order the rest of my day in love for the people you have given me to serve. Amen.
Bedtime: Father, I was made to rest in your love. May my body rest in sleep, and may my mind rest in your love. Amen.
