COVID-19 PERSPECTIVE: Jake Mills
I’ve been thinking about habits lately. It’s come up in my Life Group and in conversations with staff over the last few weeks.
I’m a creature of habit. I do basically the same thing every morning, every week, every month. Once you know my order at a certain restaurant or coffeeshop, you know it for life. For the most part, I live daily life like a train on train tracks. I’ve spent time setting the tracks just how I like them and I don’t deviate much. After all … if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right?
But things are a little out of whack these days, aren’t they?
This COVID-19 situation is the great rhythm and routine wrecker. At least it’s been that way in my life. My carefully laid tracks are all jacked up. Things are different and it took me a good minute to recover the good habits I’ve spent years establishing.
When your world gets turned upside down, your good habits get disrupted, but not only that. Those habits weren’t just taking you toward something good. Many of them were also keeping you from something destructive.
They weren’t just train tracks. They were guardrails.
Maybe you can relate. Maybe you’ve experienced a disruption in some godly habits you’d established—and that has opened the door to some sinful habits you’d all but eliminated—godly habits like daily prayer and Bible reading, weekly Sabbath, leading the kids in regular Bible study and prayer, checking in with an accountability partner, praying with your spouse, etc. Maybe it’s meditation, fasting or solitude.
Whatever it is, I want to encourage you to buckle down and do whatever it takes to reclaim those godly habits. The Devil will give you tons of excuses because spiritual habits are in many ways the doorway a consistent relationship with God. The tendency will be to say things like, “This is just a season” and “Once we get through this, I’ll get back to it.” But the truth is …
Spiritual habits aren’t optional during these seasons. They’re what get you through these seasons.
Spiritual habits keep you anchored to the Source no matter how rough the seas. They’re a lane that keeps you going in the right direction in the midst of distraction, a conduit of God’s peace to your heart during seasons of panic.
So what spiritual habit have you lost during this time? What spiritual disciplines do you need to reestablish? And what bad habits have you inadvertently taken up over the last month or so? Talk with someone close to you about this. Get help getting back on track.
I’m praying for you—that your godly habits will remain strong so that you emerge on the other side of the COVID-19 crisis closer to God than you’ve ever been.
Read more COVID-19 Perspectives from pastors and church leaders.