The Gravity of Habits

This post is by Sabeth Kapahu.

My daughter stretched her fingers from the home row to the keys required to form words. It was hard to sit beside her and watch. Everything in me wanted to do it for her. The snap voice inside me yelled against my knee jerk reaction, “don’t do it for her!” Sure it would be faster, but it would not help her habit. 

As adults in the age of immediate results, we seldom remember where our skills developed. We forget the pain of computer class as we rush to respond to the next email. When we pause and reflect on how we got here, we remember our habits formed through slow growth, and slow growth is hard. 

The words my daughter was trying to type were the following: “The Leaning Tower of Pisa has not fallen over because the line through its center has always intersected the base of the tower.”  There was more than just a typing habit being formed here. There was a lesson in building strong foundations and the power of centering alignment. She was learning about structural integrity and its relationship to gravity, while I was being reminded that life long habits start small and take time to build. I can’t build a habit for her. She’ll only master this skill if she puts in the work; not if I type for her to get it done faster. 

We don’t get to choose the future, but we do get to prepare for it. Our future selves and skills will develop based on the habits we form today. This is what I love so much about the foundation of the three minute morning. When we choose to start our days with Jesus, surrender, and intentionality, we are centering our gravity in the One who sustains us for the long haul. I’ve often heard the saying, “old habits die hard.” Let us not forget that those habits started somewhere. We may be at the beginning of our journey, but it is never too late to start something new. It’s never too late to form a new discipline. It’s never too late to start with small growth.

When we first learn to type we press delete more than we do spacebar. Our words per minute start at zero, and our confidence is slim. With time and trust in the process, we begin moving as if we’ve always been a fluent keyboarder. The stronger our habit becomes, the farther the strength translates to other areas of our lives. One habit builds upon another; eventually the words we type have the power to change our lives and those around us. It is the same with God Time, Plan Time, and Move Time. We start small and trust Jesus to meet us in the minutes that start our day. We train our minds, bodies, and hearts to follow his lead and eventually we are fluid citizens of The Kingdom with the power to change our lives and those around us.

Let us remember that it is okay to re-imagine what our mornings look like; that it is never too late to learn something new, and that slow growth produces great reward when stewarded with intentional discipline. 

 Sabeth Kapahu is a mother (x4), wife and entrepreneur with a passion for inviting people back to the things that matter most. She’s the owner of Invited Back LLC which can be found at: http://reimaginereinvite.com 

Photo by Damian Zaleski on Unsplash