CAUTION: DO NOT MESS WITH MY HABITS
It’s 4:30 a.m. and the alarm on my iPhone goes off. Sometimes it can be so selfish; it takes up my attention during the day and it thinks it can wake me up.
Anyway, I jump out of bed and head to take my morning shower. Once in the shower, I use my preferred soap and shampoo. I wash myself up in a certain order of tasks and I’m done. The occasional stand around and enjoy the comfort of the water does take place, but I quickly realize that the day is calling me.
The water goes off, I open the curtain and there’s my towel, Mr. Consistent. I grab it from its faithful location and dry off. From there I clean the teeth, slap on some deodorant and just make sure I smell half decent. This is my morning.
In review of everything so far, I can safely say that these are my morning habits. I have my certain products that I like to use, I have a certain order of doing things, and these things all have their place. In short, I am comfortable and use to how things get done.
The only time things become a problem is when CHANGE comes into play. For example, my shampoo runs out, I forget to replace my wash cloth and I find myself without, or if my wife decides she is going to hang her towel in my spot.
STOP. This is where the story gets funny, but also kind of complicated.
I can’t remember exactly how it happened, but the short story is my wife started hanging her towel in my normal spot.
Now typically, she takes the left side and I take the hook on the right side. No big deal right? I tried not to think anything of it the first time and thought maybe it was just a fluke. Well, it went on for another couple days.
During these couple days, my annoyance level started to peak. I thought “how could she take my spot, this is my spot”, “how dare she?” Pretty ridiculous right?
I finally convinced myself that we had to talk about it. I needed to know if I needed to adjust my habits moving forward or see if she’d be willing to move back to her spot. Here’s how it went.
“Hey babe, we need to have a talk.” She was sitting innocently on the couch just doing her thing. She looked at me with concern and asked what about. I hesitated and said, “We need to talk about the towel situation.” I must have looked ridiculous. She looked at me with confusion.
I held my ground and proceeded, “Your towel has been hanging in my spot recently and I need to know if you plan on keeping it there.” She didn’t realize it was such a big deal. She smiled at me and said that she would be willing to move it back to her old location. I breathed a sigh of relief and after a little more discussion, we laughed about the entire situation.
What did I learn here? A couple things …
The first was the importance of good communication in marriage. Can you imagine if I would have let something like this fester for weeks, or even months and let it destroy my marriage. I would have been crazy. She didn’t even realize it was such a big deal to me and was more than willing to change back to her spot.
Marriage requires give and take by both partners, no matter how small or large the situation appears.
The second was the realization of my habits. Habits help us run our lives at a smoother pace, but they can also make us just a little too comfortable.
In starting out with my walk with Christ, I had to make some big changes to my habits. From the music I let influence me, to the way I spent my free time, to the way I led my marriage and so much more.
Jesus led a life of habits that were about teaching, sacrificing and loving other people. Following Him requires a new set of habits, a new outlook on life and what’s important. Are you ready to make these changes? Are you ready to change your life for Christ?
And I learned again that God has a great sense of humor …
Feel free to share a funny story about how habits can control certain parts of your life or share your thoughts on how following Christ requires a change of our habits.