Building Habits: The Gap Between Knowing and Doing
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Have you lived in that space between knowing something and actually doing it? There's a gap (a large, jagged one at times) between wrangling up all the knowledge about a truth, a way of life, or a practice and actually putting our feet and hands into action.
We know we should read God's Word regularly—but planting ourselves in a chair and laying it open on our table is another thing.
We know we should pray—but pausing to say “Dear Father, please help me” is another practice altogether.
We know we should drink sixty-four ounces of water a day—but remembering to drink from the water bottle is another battle in itself.
We know we should take a pause to cool down when arguments get heated—but actually following through when you're boiling with anger is hard.
We know that the orchid on our windowsill needs regular watering—but finding the time within the day to soak it isn't easy.
For some issues, it's a journey in and of itself to convince ourselves that we need to change our ways or implement a new habit. We have to immerse ourselves in books, podcasts, and the counsel of others. Sometimes we have to go through a trying situation to realize how poorly our pre-established ways actually work. But once we get our hands around that truth and we full-heartedly resound a cheer of agreement with it, we believe that the battle is over. We're convinced; now, we'll automatically begin to follow through.
Yet what do we discover? We know the truth, we can even preach the truth to others, but we're still stumbling our way through our day without ever implementing it.
How do we put our knowledge into our hands and feet?
I struggle with prayer. To my shame, there are nights that I've lain on my bed and realized I hadn't spoken a single word to God that day. I've sat down to study the Bible, spent thirty minutes in God's Word, and still walked away without uttering a single prayer. When I realized simply trying to remember or memorize Bible verses wasn't helping, I bought books and poured over them. I closed those books with even more resolve to pray better and more often. Yet what happened? I still didn't pray.
I'm realizing that the battle isn't just for my mind—it's for my entire, embodied self. Simply having a robust theology of prayer doesn't make me pray every day. Even having gone through several bouts of intense suffering that made me realize my desperate dependence on God didn't automatically form this habit in me. How do we put our knowledge into our hands and feet? I appreciate James K. A. Smith's word picture here in You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit:
I can't think my way into virtue … Laws, rules, and commands specify and articulate the good; they inform me about what I ought to do. But virtue is different: virtue isn't acquired intellectually but affectively. Education in virtue is not like learning the Ten Commandments or memorizing Colossians 3:12–14. Education in virtue is a kind of formation, a retraining of our dispositions. 'Learning' virtue—becoming virtuous—is more like practicing scales on the piano than learning music theory: the goal is, in a sense, for your fingers to learn the scales so they can then play 'naturally,' as it were. Learning here isn't just information acquisition; it's more like inscribing something into the very fiber of your being. (p. 18)
Practicing and building habits doesn’t sound all that passionate and beautiful. What I wish is that the knowledge in my mind overflowed into a zealous display from my heart. I want my well-developed theology of prayer to exude from me into a life of “praying without ceasing.” But that wish neglects that I am not just a “thinking thing” as Smith writes, but rather a fully formed person with a mind, soul, and body.
Sometimes intentional habits must come first and the love for the practice follows afterward.
I'm learning that I need to make a deliberate, conscious effort if I want to change my prayer life—or any part of my life, for that matter. It's not all that romantic, but I'm setting reminders on my phone and pairing prayer time with pre-established habits like breakfast, the children's quiet time after lunch, and when I study the Bible in the evening. To be honest, my heart and mind aren't always there along with me. But I'm pressing forward anyway. As I “practice my scales” of prayer, I'm hoping that my heart will develop (by God's grace) a natural habit and desire to pray.
So often, I want to wait for inspiration to pray. If I love God, shouldn't I simply want to? I shouldn't have to force myself, should I? I'm learning that sometimes the intentional habits must come first and the love for the practice follows afterward. Again, Smith writes,
If sanctification is tantamount to closing the gap between what I know and what I do … it means changing what I want. And that requires submitting ourselves to disciplines and regime that reach down into our deepest habits. The Spirit of God meets us in that space—in that gap—not with lightning bolts of magic but with the concrete practices of the body of Christ that conscript our bodily habits. (p. 65)
How many of us have begun a workout routine, an earlier morning, or a new hobby and found ourselves annoyed and frustrated by it in the beginning. At first, we drag our feet along as we move towards the yoga mat, or our heads feel glued to our pillow when the alarm resounds at 5:30 a.m. Yet as the days wear on, we start to anticipate and feel the goodness of this new habit coursing through us. We begin to enjoy it. But it took pushing through the resistance first to reach that joy.
Let me encourage you: Don't be afraid of building spiritual habits. They may feel dry and listless at first, but keep pressing on, because often it is through those habits that love grows.
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