From the moment we are born, we begin learning. Some might say we began learning while still inside the womb as we became familiar with the voice of our mom, but learning began in earnest after we arrived. And the things we practiced the most that we learned became a habit for us. Some of those were good things and some not so good. Some were purposeful and some were random, but once they became a habit, they were imprinted in us unlike other things we learned but did not practice.

It was likely our parents were the first trainers of habits for us. We may have figured out some things on our own like crawling and crying to communicate, but they taught us words that went with things, people, and our emotions that we carry with us into adulthood. Later, they would teach us things to help keep us safe as well as what good manners were. Before long we developed a growing list of habits that were common to us all as well as some that were unique to us.

Our most well-developed habits were things that almost became automatic for us whether good or not so good. Those that were not so good, our parents tried very hard to change with varying degrees of success.

By the time we were heading off to school we had a longer list of trainers that were developing our list of habits. It wasn’t only our teachers, but also our friends in the neighborhood, at school, and wherever we went to worship (if we did). It was an amazing adventure, and our minds were supple and learned many of them quickly and with the behaviors came what we thought or believed as well. Those things were harder for others to know and yet they began to have a great influence on us because they would repeat in our self-talk and became very persuasive.

Some of us wanted to do things we already seemed to have a knack for and practicing those were not so hard and we became better and better at them. Some of us wanted to do things we were never very skilled at, and practice was something we did not enjoy, and our skills never changed a great deal and often we stopped trying to do those things.

What kinds of habits do you still have that you learned long ago either accidentally or because someone taught and trained you?

In 1989, Stephen Covey developed a list of habits that would help to make us more effective if we practiced them. Many people read the book and others attended workshops that trained us in these habits and allowed us to start practicing them right away. I was one of those and a small wallet sized list of them sits on my desk as a reminder. Many of you might know them. They include these: be proactive, begin with the end in mind, put first things first, think win-win, seek first to understand, then to be understood, synergize, and sharpen the saw.

Some of us developed habits regarding God, faith, the Bible and more as we grew up. They were first influenced by our families or those closest to us, but soon others impacted us as well. Some of us kept and expanded those habits as we grew well into adulthood despite challenges that came along. Others had influences that created questions that we didn’t ever seem to get settled, but when a crisis came, we might turn back to and then wished we knew more than we did. We might have had bits and pieces of a Psalm we once memorized or a prayer we were taught, but we didn’t have a firm footing from which to draw.

Our relationship with God, Christ, or the Holy Spirit is first and foremost a relationship, but the more we learn and develop that relationship, the stronger our foundation and along the way we develop habits that make sense with Covey’s initial 1989 list. But responsibilities, crises, and distractions get in the way of the relationship and the habits, and we can become more vulnerable as a result. Habits (if they are healthy and good ones) are like rails that guide us and keep us aligned during tough times. They should never preclude relationship, but they strengthen the bond of that relationship.

The last few years have upended us in many ways.

“The mistake folks are making in this rough hour is trying to figure out how to fit a little more of God into their crowded lives.

We need to do the opposite. Start with God, center your life on him, and work outward from there. Our spirituality moves from something that is part of our life to the epicenter of our life – from which all other things flow, and to which other plans yield.”

John Eldredge

And it doesn’t take a crisis to impact a well-developed habit. A change in season that alters our routine can do that as well even if it is not a negative season. I found that so true when I retired ten years ago. Previously, my days ran in a consistent rhythm of times I got up, left for work, returned home, etc. and my spiritual habits were set within those as well and grounded me for the day ahead. But retirement threw that routine out the window and developing a new routine that was consistent didn’t happen automatically. I had to practice the discipline in a new routine that still was more often subject to shifts than it had been when I was working full-time, but I knew without some rails that I would truly be adrift if I didn’t make this a priority.

“If we have made God our priority and we have a history of tapping into him, then we are in a much better position to draw upon his resilience when crises come. If we have tinkered with our spiritual life, it has not been a priority, troubled times wake us up and urge us to prioritize God now.”

John Eldredge

There will always be another crisis in this life. If we have been depleted and need to replenish, now is the time to develop the practice of getting some good habits solidified.

If what we most need is to dig deep into our hearts to replenish what has been whittled away over the past several years that started with the pandemic and more, what gets in the way of that? Certainly, there is no one answer to that. We may know little of our heart beyond feelings we view as emanating there. We may fear what we might find there. We might have forgotten that it is where Christ dwells if we are believers and yet never really experienced what that might be like. We pray looking up toward heaven or beside us where we hope He is without going to the place He lives by his Holy Spirit according to scripture.

To get there means we need to quiet ourselves without and within and that can also be a challenge for many of us. Even during lockdowns, there was quite a lot of internal noise going on as our fears and anxieties were stoked by every new report or crisis. Some of us love silence and the spiritual discipline of solitude, but that is not true for everyone.

To dig deep and gain or regain strength and resilience, we cannot start through a list of “to do’s.” That keeps things in a far too cerebral place to reach the well of living water Christ places within us when He dwells there.

“It’s important we remember that the strength that prevails is a strength given to us by God. This is not something we can conjure up. It’s not gritting our teeth and doubling down. You’ll hear athletes talk of digging deep when some great contest is upon them. Soldiers use the same phrase, and it’s good in the way it describes tapping into our deepest resources. But the similarity ends there, for the strength we are after is a supernatural strength that rises up from the God who not only created us but dwells within us.”

John Eldredge

I love that solid truth reminder. Any of us in a crisis knows that we cannot simply look at what we learned in a small group, podcast, seminar, or retreat and pull those gems out to use very easily. They are good things, but we need something nearer than that and generally we are too depleted and worn to even recall them at the point. Additionally, old relational wounds can make it hard to share what is going on with others. Even in the body of Christ we have some of those wounds because our brothers and sisters are sometimes (maybe often) better at offering suggestions than listening to our hearts that are breaking, weary, or in torment. All those good suggestions, scripture passages, and promises to pray are needed, but at the point of crisis, most people need a safe place to be heard and loved well. That tends to happen most easily with someone who has journeyed with us on good days and bad so they can lovingly see blind spots that are adding to the crisis we are in.

John Eldredge gives readers a framework to help us find that place within where we most need to go when we need supernatural strength and replenishment in his book, Resilient. He suggests that there are “levels of our being” and describes them in ways that make so much sense in seeing the obstacles we face to digging deep.

“You have fleeting thoughts throughout the day, most are insignificant.

The Shallows of our being are characterized and rules by the distractions of life. In the Shallows we flit from thought to thought, distraction to distraction, almost unpredictably.

This is most people’s mental life nowadays – a fluttering array of randomly distracting thought flitting along like a thousand butterflies. Those are the Shallows of your existence.”

John Eldredge

Nicholas Carr and Richard Powers wrote about that in their book, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. Some of you may have read about this or heard interviews that speak of how our attention has been impacted by all the clicking we do on one device or another. But even before those devices came into being, we had those tendencies. It happens to all of us. We are headed somewhere in our car and pass something or hear something we are listening to, and it reminds us of something else that reminds us of something else. Sometimes we can take a detour for one of those and lose track of the time and our original destination or miss a street sign or even a stoplight.

The Shallows can create havoc throughout our day and even invades our quiet times more often than we would like. But there is a second layer of being within us that is also an obstacle to digging. This one is even harder for us to get through on our way to the deep place within our heart.

“You also have longings, hopes, and dreams that are far more important.

The Midlands are characterized and ruled by what I, echoing Jesus’ words, would call ‘the cares of life,’ the deeper worries, heartaches, longings, and aspirations that occupy the human heart.

Things like the health of your aging parents, the learning struggles of your children, the status of troubled relationships, the progress of your career or lack thereof. Your finances, your own health, your hopes and fears for your future or the future of your loved one.”

John Eldredge

Bingo! We all can identify with the list Eldredge gives and may have more to add. Beyond these two levels or layers is the deeper place within where Christ dwells for believers. So, what are the depths and what are the things they exhibit?

“Deeper still, down in the ‘depths of your being,’ is the essence of your existence, and the dwelling place of God…

The Depths are characterized and rules by eternal things like faith, hope, love, and joy, to name a few.

We all have a deep inner life, whether we pay attention to it or not…”

John Eldredge

Reading Resilient by John Eldredge has spoken deeply to my heart and the Resilient addition to Eldredge’s free “One Minute Pause” app with brief morning and evening help to regain resilience.

“Come to me, all of you, who are weary and carry heavy burdens.”

Matthew 11:28 (NLT)

Photo by tatiana syrikova from Pexels

As we look around the crumbling of so many icons in the world, it can be difficult to clarify those whom we most admire, respect, or hope to emulate. In every arena of life we see evidences of significant erosion in character and integrity. Sadly, it is so commonplace that we might not even notice the latest phone video or headline we see. We also may have chosen to delete, hide, or unfollow persons on social media to avoid commentary about any and all of this that shifts us into even more polarized thinking than might already plague us.

Make no mistake! Christ’s enemy means to divide any and all of us and Christians and the body of Christ are unfortunately not exempt in this.

Photo by pavel danilyuk from Pexels

Perhaps we have mistaken celebrities for heroes. Celebrities used to primarily entertain us on film, TV, stage, radio, and CD’s as well as all manner of sports venues. They made us laugh, cheer, cry and look at ourselves as only performers could. They may still do this, but we also find them regularly operating as pundits on matters of faith, morality, culture, politics, and more, whether or not they are educated or knowledgeable to do so. If we agree with their opinion, we love it. If we do not agree, he or she loses a fan and we tune out and off.

Clarifying the difference between celebrities and heroes is something Kenny Luck took time to identify in his book, Dangerous Good, and I think it’s worth sharing:

• Celebrities are known for their name being known.

         Heroes are known for thinking of someone else.

• Celebrities show it’s possible to be wildly famous.

         Heroes show it’s possible to be dangerously good.

• Celebrities make history through visibility.

         Heroes make history through noble qualities.

• Time passes and dissolves a person’s celebrity.

         Time passes, creates space for hindsight, and reveals true  heroes more clearly.

The Bible is an outstanding place to discover a listing of heroes and those who worked outside center stage in seemingly small ways, but made an impact we still recall today.

Although you can find these men and women scattered from Genesis to Revelation, a quick review of Hebrews 11 will give you a review of some of the ones we most often recall. There are others you will not see listed there, but were noteworthy enough to appear on the pages of the Bible.

There was the boy with the lunch who helped to feed 5,000 and the fallen woman at the well who became a missionary who shared about Jesus with everyone she knew after a conversation with Him. They would likely be shocked to see their actions were important enough to appear in this sacred book.

In The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien, Aragorn offers wise perspective:

“Deeds will not be less valiant because they are unpraised.”

True heroes (those worth our emulation) have a number of similar qualities. The first of these is that they are willing to be available to do or be what God’s call requires. Their willingness has nothing to do with desiring to be a hero and everything to do with obedience and a deep commitment to the Lord. Along with his or her willingness is the evidence of their selflessness that shows up as they seek to see others around them – their needs, challenges, wounds, and more. They are not so focused on themselves they miss the person or persons right there in front of them.

These heroes also risk stepping out to not only see, but to act. They often shove fear, anxiety, and doubt to the background and as they move forward in obedience gain courage from the One who is able to supply them with all they need for the task. They persevere when others do not. They step forward when others move to the rear.

True heroes also do not concern themselves with receiving credit for what they have been or done. How rare a quality that is in our world today.

Paul speaks of these unwavering heroes in Galatians 6:9 (NIV):

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

James 1:12 (NIV) also speaks on this subject:

“Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.”

Who do we look up to? 

Who are the heroes?

He or she is often the person you wouldn’t notice, least expect and would never consider himself or herself a hero.

Photo by Pixabay from Pexels

Could it be that we are born with an inward drive to be always leaning forward in life? We keep moving toward the next thing, the next developmental task, the next goal with our eyes aiming toward what is ahead. There are those innate things like sitting up, creeping, crawling and more that occupy the first months of our life but then it seems something inside of us is triggered to want to move into the next thing. We want to stand, walk, run, and do what everyone else in the world we see is doing.

We start to want to pattern our life so we can ride a bicycle or a skateboard, pop a wheelie, master roller skates and more. It isn’t very long before we are ever looking forward to when we will be able to play an instrument, be good at a sport, be able to drive a car, and the list keeps going as we start counting off what we can do or be when we reach certain ages.

Photo by Sarla’s Eye Photography from Pexels

We barely notice how we are wishing life to speed up until we reach that goal and then move onto the next one. We might not even take time to enjoy the season we are in that we had just wished for before we are off to the next one. Adulthood seems far away and looks like that idyllic time when we will finally be free to do whatever we want, whenever we want.

Days can seem to barely move and then in the blink of an eye we are approaching high school graduation and choices about our future whether it will be a job, a trade, apprenticeship, or college. At the same time our parents’ heads can be dealing with the speed we have traveled from total dependence to desiring total independence without much clue about what that will mean or require of us. Our parents have some experience with that but we’re not sure they know as much as we do now.

Photo by Pam Ecrement

Aging is a funny thing. It happens to all of us and even in adulthood it takes more than a hot minute in our twenties to recognize the limits of life that will catch up to us sooner than we can imagine. Many current generations seem to think they begin adulthood at the same place their parents are in. They haven’t learned about the costs, sacrifices, and experience it will take to get there or what they will need to prioritize to reach those things. Car loans, home loans, long work hours, home improvements in time and money are outside of their realm initially and then can seem unfair when they hoped to work and play and have a life that would be easier than it turns out to be.

Adulthood brings its own strivings for things, promotions, acknowledgement, ideal vacations, and perhaps families of our own. We get caught up in it all barely noticing the gray hairs starting to appear in our parents’ hair or the slowing of our grandparents’ steps. They have always been there and if we are fortunate we won’t know what it is like to not have them to enjoy, gain help from, or see as people beyond their parenthood.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio

It happens to all of us. We don’t mean to miss some of the obvious things that will slowly become clearer to us no matter what path we take. Aging and time keep us leaning forward.

At some point in mid life we hit bumps that remind us we aren’t carefree children, eager teens, or idealistic young adults. We don’t all run into the same bumps. For some it may be an unanticipated job loss, for others an accident, and for others a parent who was always there isn’t what they once were. It can be a hard season as we are in multiple transitions at once and can feel spread beyond our capacity. It’s a season where some experience loss and grief for the first time.

Photo by cottonbro studio from Pexels

No matter what the bumps or a glimpse that we would like life now to slow down a bit, it doesn’t. We look ahead and lean forward toward retirement as a time when we can finally have time to do all those things we want to do but haven’t had time or money to do. If we’re observant we notice others just ahead of us who have retired and the path for each is unique. Some are still in good health and living “the good life” on their favorite golf course. Some are pursuing missions they can now volunteer to be part of. Some are helping adult children or caring for grandchildren and others still are dealing with health issues that limit what they can engage in. In many cases life has happened and their choice may not win the vote.

Even as we become senior adults some unidentifiable something is leaning us forward and now we know life is shorter than we once knew. Wisdom may help us value moments rather than a far-off destination we once dreamed of. We pause now more often to cherish those we love and we begin to grapple with what eternity means and might look like.

Whatever the path may be ahead we are always leaning forward. If we have an abiding spiritual life how we view this will be different. We saw it coming long before we truly age. We may only be surprised that it happened as quickly as it did.

Perhaps Maya Angelou gives us a clear perspective about this process:

“Most people don’t grow up. Most people age. They find parking spaces, honor their credit cards, get married, have children, and call that maturity. What that is, is aging.”

But my favorite quote is likely one by J.R.R. Tolkien spoken by Gandalf to Frodo in The Fellowship of the Ring:

“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that’s been given to us.”

Photo by m. Venter from Pexels

Photo by Blue Aruaz from Pexels

Life can come at us like a meandering stream or a fire hose and everything in between. Most of us try to be prepared to some degree for each day and also for the unexpected.  Unfortunately, the unexpected by its very nature can upend us, birth questions, stir up doubts, and lead us down rabbit trails. Perhaps the most common question is “why” or “why did this happen to me?”

That question tends to be fraught with ambiguous answers that are not helpful. We live in a crazy world where chaos, disease, accidents, crime, natural disasters, and more are not unusual. We can be lulled into believing we don’t live in a dangerous world at times despite the reality that it often is. Then someone drives through a stop sign and we get knocked off our bicycle flying through the air crashing onto the hood and into the windshield of the car. Our injuries are traumatic and we are changed forever.

We are a good employee and work hard for a business, organization, or company and without warning are told our services are no longer needed. How could that be? Wasn’t I invaluable and skilled in numerous areas? Why me? 

Photo by RDNE stock from Pexels

We’ve been eating healthy and exercising regularly for years and at a routine medical appointment a blood test comes back abnormal and we’re referred to various specialists and our future feels less certain than it did minutes before.

We’ve devoted our lives to trying to make a good family life and train our children to be equipped for the world they are entering into, teaching them about what is good and what is evil, what is risky behavior and what is not. We’ve monitored TV, video games, phone use, and friends but one afternoon we discover one of our children has made a series of bad choices with consequences you cannot protect them from.

Photo by Liza Summer from Pexels

Far too often in cases like these and others we wonder where God is and why He allowed this to happen if He loves us. What kind of God is He?

Our awareness blurs out the reality that God didn’t intend our world to be this way but the choices of mankind at the outset put in motion an unseen war we live in the midst of between evil and good. The ebb and flow of our daily lives veils our perception of that and if we are generally law-abiding, responsible persons that we can avoid many of these things.

Even the process of aging and its impact on us little by little over time is a part of that story we are living in.

So, where is God?

The answer is one we may too often miss. He is right there with us and for us with one provision after another before we even know we need it. He doesn’t keep us from all harm, disease, disappointment, disaster, heartache, pain, grief, and brokenness but He provides for us out of his love for us before we even know we need the provision.

I know because I have seen it time and time again over my lifetime and a few days ago I had a graphic example that immediately reminded me of that truth.

Our rainy, humid, steamy, hot weather caused our front door to stick and not open easily and then not open at all. We knew as fall approached that would naturally alleviate the problem but were reminded it was a safety hazard despite having other entry and exit doors. 

To that end, my husband diagnosed what seemed needed and began to work on the problem. Not far into it he recognized he needed help to resolve what was wrong. Several calls were made to get someone to provide that help to no avail. I suggested he call a friend to see if he might know of anyone and the friend not only was home but offered to come help within the hour. And on his end, he prayed before coming that God would show him how to help.

The result? Various issues were identified and resolved and soon the door was working perfectly by 5:30 PM and we were so grateful for the provision of this help. What we didn’t see then was the significance of the timing of this provision.

Photo by Hatice Baran from Pexels

Shortly after 3AM my husband rolled out of bed while asleep and sustained an injury causing a wound that would not stop bleeding. It necessitated a 911 call for medical assistance and guess what? That newly fixed door was where they had easiest access to enter. God provided in advance out of his love and care for us.

But He didn’t stop there. As the squad was at the door I discovered a good neighbor was sitting on our porch. He had been up with his dog and heard the squad backing into our driveway. He wanted to check on us and then offered to drive me to the ER and wait with me there and see my husband and I got back home.

It had been an emotionally, physically, mentally exhausting few hours and again God provided in a way that could not have been a coincidence.

The story could go on but these key points are enough to share the powerful truth that God’s love and provision is there in seen and unseen ways when life comes at us with something unexpected that unsettles and upends us. 

Will we recognize the provision when it comes or miss it or complain that it wasn’t the provision that we wanted? 

God never fails.

Photo by Pam Ecrement