“The chains of habit are to light to feel until they are to strong to break”
Man is a habitual being. Part of our make up is that the longer we engage in behavior the more it becomes our nature. If you studied psychology you probably remember Pavlov’s dogs. As part of an elaborate experiment on human nature he was able to manipulate a dogs response by continually using the same stimuli. Pavlov noticed that whenever a dog came to its food, as he was preparing the food it would salivate. He began to ring a bell every time he fed the dog. Soon he was able to make the dogs salivate even in the absence of food if he simply rang the same bell. Although man is a vastly superior creation than the dog, we nevertheless have a very similar mechanism in our brain. If I repeat an action long enough it slowly will become “second nature” to me. Thus if I re-enforce a thought repeatedly it will eventually become a habituated thought pattern. In our physical bodies we have both “voluntary” and “involuntary” muscles. For me to move my arm and pick up a cup of coffee, I must mentally trigger the action. For my heart to beat or my lungs to breathe it requires no conscious thought. Thus even when I sleep, my mind tells my heart to beat. If it didn’t, I’d be in big trouble! In a similar way, many of our actions and thoughts are an outgrowth of habits we have formed during life. Thus in many ways the present is formed by the past and my future is dictated by these habitual responses. I can recognize this in many avenues of daily life. The first time I sit at a piano keyboard, I am clumsy and frustrated. However, the more I train myself the more easily I can maneuver my hands on the keys with great confidence.
Think with me of some things you do every day that you do the same way without even planning to. For instance, every time you put on a pair of pants you put the same leg in first, you put the same sock on first and you put the same foot in a left or right shoe first.
To do so, requires no planning on your part. In many ways our actions remind me of a rutted old mountain road. By erosion and continual traffic, a dirt road becomes rutted. These ruts are very difficult to stay out of when you drive up a dirt road. It seems you spend a lot of energy trying to steer the vehicle up out of the ruts. The longer the ruts are reinforced, the deeper they get. So in our life, the more we engage in sinful actions and thoughts, the more difficult it is to break free of them.
Let me illustrate this way: If I had you sit in a chair and wrapped you in a piece of yarn one time, and then gave you a command to break free, you could do so very easily. If I had you sit in the same chair and wrapped you in the chair a half dozen times and then gave you the same command, you could probably again break free fairly easily. However, if I surrounded you in the chair a hundred times and then gave you the command to extricate yourself, you probably would find yourself hopelessly entangled.
Thus it is with us! Many times we play with sin thinking it will never bind us and after one or two short dalliances with a sin that may be true. However, the more I engage the thought or the deed, the more I am becoming hopelessly bound. Maybe you’ve heard the little adage: “Practice makes perfect.” This adage is actually wrong, practice doesn’t make perfect—it only makes permanent! Thus the more I practice a certain activity the more habituated I become and the more difficult it becomes to change. If I learn a golf swing wrongly, and I persevere in the wrong swing long enough, before I can learn to do it right, I must first unlearn my wrong method.
When we analyze our sinful habits, it can be very discouraging to think that we can ever change. According to the world’s paradigm, the only hope is for me to re program myself like Pavlov did with his dogs. Is that the Biblical solution? Thankfully it is not. God has not made self-discipline the major method in conquering sinful behavior. Once again, the Lord would turn us to the cross. In I Corinthians 1:18-31 the Lord points us to a vastly superior way of change. Thus a few chapters later in 6:9-12 Paul reminds us that although the wicked cannot inherit the Kingdom, every one in the Kingdom was once a vile, wicked sinner in the sight of God. However, in His grace, Christ has washed, sanctified and justified all those who believe in Him. Thus although the preaching of the cross is foolishness to the wise and learned of this world it is the only hope of those that are despised and base and nothing. Thus, as he says in Chapter 1 of I Corinthians, the wise and noble are excluded from the kingdom but the sinner is embraced by it!
In chapter 6:12 Paul gives us a very important principle for living a successful Christian life. Although all things may be permissible for the believer, a diligent believer will not allow himself to be brought under the power of any outside influence. Thus a believer carefully guards his habits and his actions to be sure that he is not selling himself into slavery. Therefore, a conscientious believer may actually sometimes deny himself a simple pleasure like a cup of coffee in the morning—not as a means of pleasing God, but simply to be sure that he is not becoming enslaved to the coffee. Because the believer realizes that his body is God’s temple (6:19,20) he is very careful what he allows into the temple. The question he asks about every thought and every deed is: Does this glorify God. Thus the cry of his life is: “Whether therefore ye eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God! (10:31) or “Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Colossians 3:17).
God has called us to liberty! II Corinthians 3:17 affirms this when Paul says: “Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty.” And Paul says in Galatians 5:1: “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has set you free and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.” Paul also asserts that the Christian is “delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” God can conquer all our habits and give us victory. The physical and chemical dependencies we have created can be vanquished by God’s Spirit. Yield to Him and allow His prompting to govern your response rather than yielding to your flesh. In many ways the battle is won or lost not by fighting our flesh, but rather by yielding control to God’s Spirit.
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