Grace and Habit

I cannot remember when I first learned what we Presbyterians call "the doctrines of grace."  I only remember that it was a tremendous relief when I did.   The "doctrines of grace" is the knowledge that God loves me just the way I am, that He showed it  by dying on the Cross for me, even when I didn't deserve it. I don't have to prove anything to God for Him to love me--He already does. I don't have to choose Him--He chose me.  I don't have to be good enough to earn His favor--He already is better than good enough for both of us.  His  death on the Cross gave me complete forgiveness for everything I've done wrong, and for those unfortunate,  wayward tendencies which make up so much of my psyche. God is a forgiving Father, who keeps taking me back no matter how much I embarrass Him, or fail His instructions.  He loves me, and that is a good thing.

The doctrines of Grace liberates me from shame and the from the tyranny of perfectionism.  God simultaneously sets the bar of perfection too high for me to reach and acceptance too low for me to miss it.    In this, God is like my wife who loves me even when I act like a jerk and dress like a hobo.  Her love is not  affected by my many failures, and neither is God's.

Yet as satisfying as grace may be, there remains a nagging disquietude.  Deep down, I'm not that good of a guy.  I may be forgiven, but that doesn't make me  right.

The grace, at least as it is sometimes understood, is that it gets at the punishment but not the cause.  Sure we are forgiven, but are we changed?  Suppose I were an alcoholic, and God were to say me " That's okay, son. I forgive you for drinking,"   That would be good, but I can still be a slave to drinking.  Even if my drinking had no direct punishment, it could till wreak havoc on my life.  Forgiveness, however wonderful, is no answer without  change.

This sets up a conundrum. If our relationship with God demands change, that implies there must be a standard of living, a law, that defines the way ought to live.  If there is a law, then I am under it. If I am under it, then I ought to be ashamed and feel guilty when I break it. I cannot be guilty and not guilty at the same time.  How, can grace and the Law coexist?   Yet they do coexist somehow. 

More specifically,  how can I both believe in doing the right thing, and believe I don't have to do the right thing?  How can we  live with God, ourselves and others, seeking to please Him, yet failing at every turn to do it right?

I cannot say that I  have fully grasped intellectually or experientially this paradox, but I can say that may have found a way around it that preserves my freedom and leads me to live a better life

 It lies in the habits of the heart.

Most of what we do in life we never think very little about. We do them automatically by learned instinct. This  ability of human beings to do repetitive tasks or to make repetitive judgments is called habit.  Habits carry the force of momentum in the mind--if we don't make a conscious effort to stop, we just keep doing them.  We act by habit without paying attention.  That is the purpose of habits, to relieve our conscious mind of constant decision making by creating a bank of premade decisions. 

Habits do not always happen by accident. We can make or break habits by the repetition of the same small decision over and over.  Have devotions three or four days in a row, and it starts a habit.  Oversleep for three or four days in a row, and that becomes a habit, too.

 Some habits are positive,  such as kissing your wife good morning, while some are negative, such at overeating,  gambling, or pornography.  Once they are formed, they draw us  like iron to a magnet. 

Habits frequently supersede the intentions of our heart.  They are, like Paul said, another law in our bodies, drawing us to do thing our spirit says we should not do. 

Habits are in many ways are the opposite of laws.

Laws are imposed from outside--habits exist on the inside. Laws are hard to keep--habits are hard not to keep.  Laws are enforced by shame--habits are enforced by momentum. Laws are more of a burden the more we have--habits  are easier to follow the more we have. Laws demand perfection--habits are about inclination.

Habits are like gravity. Whether or not we defy them, they are still there, pulling us in one direction or another. 

Laws can become habits.  For example, we may be in the habit of buckling our seat belts when we get in the car,  when we also know it is the law we do so. Once we get in the habit, we no longer worry about obeying .  Once a law becomes a habit, it no longer becomes a burden. 

The intention of the Law was to help us develop of the right kind of habits.  We my no longer need to be told not to kill, because  we do not want to kill. We no longer need to be told not to steal, because we don't want what other people have.  We  may not be under the threat of punishment, but we still need to make good habits instead of bad ones.

This pursuit of good habits is purely personal.   Failure in habits, at least at first,  is to be expected, but it doesn't need to stop us from trying.  We don't stop trying to develop good eating habits because we overindulged in a meal last week. We just get up and try again.  We don't stop talking to God because missed devotions one morning--we just try again. 

Whether we are trapped in bad habits or failing at good habits, there is no habit which cannot be changed with God's help.  Paul says that there is no sin which is not common to us, but God will with each temptation give us a way of escape, so that we may be able to bear it.  With God's help we can break every binding habit. 

I am grateful for God's universal forgiveness in my life. I am also grateful that He can help me develop positive change though positive habits .   The struggle for  sanctification is a struggle to develop new habits. Change our habits and we change ourselves.