Last week I spent some time in a retail tire store waiting to get a new set of tires on my truck. Using the down time to check my email on my smart phone, I found myself totally distracted by a meltdown that was occurring on the other end of the waiting area. Some guy was not happy about his tires, and was letting the store employee know about it something fierce!
Whoa! I quickly looked around to make sure there were no women and children in earshot of his verbal tirade. Although I was interested in what the tire guy had done wrong in case I needed to beware of buyers remorse, it was totally impossible to follow his logic since every other word made me cringe. Fortunately, the two took it outside and I was spared the full performance. Later I got a text from a co-worker who asked, “Are you busy?” My response was, “No. Just listening to a guy speak cursive.” On the other end I read, “What??”
Category Archives: Spiritual Growth
HABITS, HABITS
![SanAntonioSisters[1]](https://i0.wp.com/www.marksimsblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/SanAntonioSisters1.jpg?ssl=1)
Have you ever paid attention to those outfits that nuns wear? Some describe the way they dress as the “Amish Catholic” style. Their garb is called a “habit.” That, of course, makes sense because they are obviously in the “habit” of wearing the same thing every day. Habit is actually our English word that comes from the Latin word habitare, which means “dwelling place” or “the place where one normally lives.” That’s obviously true for the nuns– they live life in those black and white uniforms. It’s where they dwell– literally.
Now. Enough about nuns. What about you and me? (My apologies to any nuns that might be reading this blog.) Here is a truth: Our character is a composite of our habits. To find out what our true character is, we must look at our habits. A person’s character is NOT what they WANT to be like, but what has been practiced over and over in life. Our character is how we live our lives, and our habits– our daily habits– are the evidence.
HOME FIELD ADVANTAGE
In sports, it’s always better to play your arch rival on your own turf; to have home field advantage. I don’t know if it’s crowd support, familiarity with the surroundings, or home cooking with the referees– it just seems to work
out better when your arch rival has to come to YOUR house to play the all-important contest.
Statistics even prove that over time, the home team is always more successful in most every sport. In Major League Baseball it’s 54%, in the National Football League it’s 57%, in the NBA it’s 61%, and in Major League Soccer the victory percentage of games played at home is up to 70%. That’s nothing to laugh at. Home field advantages are legit! If you’re going to be in a turf war, you’re better off if you play on your home turf!
The Bible seems to agree.
On more than one occasion Jesus sent his disciples out into a hostile world to: “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.” Jesus gave them tremendous power over the Enemy– the Devil. But Luke 9 records that it didn’t always work that way. On one occasion, a young boy was tormented by a demon but the disciples failed miserably when they tried to cast the demons out of him. Wait a minute. What happened? Did Jesus lie? Did He abandon his disciples and leave them powerless against the Enemy? Let’s look closer.
UNCLOG YOUR DRAIN
Letting go of the past is not easy. Being forgiven for our mistakes and being washed clean from sin is one thing, but getting rid of the messy stink of the past is another thing altogether. We are aware that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin, and that those sins were atoned for on the cross, but getting over the feeling of guilt, and shame, and hurt, is easier said than done. Sometimes it feels like there’s just too much stuff to dispose of, and that eventually God’s going to say, “Enough! I can’t take any more of your junk!” It’s like our spiritual drain gets clogged and stuff starts to back up. “Pray harder,” they tell us. Or, “You just have to bear the consequences. You got yourself into this mess; you’ll have to deal with it.”
What do you do when your spiritual drain gets clogged? When there’s just too much to deal with?
VERTICAL GAZE
Let me come straight to the point. Life is meant to be lived with a vertical gaze. Think about it. It’s true from the time we are born and beyond. Babies first learn to make eye contact looking up. Toddlers learn to walk by looking up toward their destination, almost always with hands raised high. Looking up is how we first learn, and how learning is always done. It is an obvious, inescapable fact.
Child to parent. Pupil to teacher. Apprentice to master. Creature to his Creator.
The real problem arrives when we think we’re big enough to shift our learning posture and begin looking down. It first happens when we convince ourselves that there is no one in the room “bigger than me.” My father called it being “too big for your britches,” and whenever I heard him use that phrase it never turned out so well for me.
