Lately, I’ve been thinking about having spiritual habits. By this, I mean having habits of saying, praying, and doing things in obedience to Scripture that point me toward Christ, remind me of truth, and verbally or physically puts myself in places of submission. I do not mean that we can be saved or attain approval by “doing the right things.”, or checking boxes of certain behavior.

When I was younger, we took my grand parents to their Catholic church most Sundays, and hated the services. To my childhood self, the chanting, standing up and sitting down repeatedly, incense that made me cough, and readings that I couldn’t understand all added up to a categorical dislike of anything structured within religion. It seemed like a formality that I was obligated to show up for, when I’d rather be home reading a book or drawing.

As an adult now attending a Baptist church, I sometimes struggle to read aloud with congregational scripture readings, because I got into the habit of disliking the practice and have an internal tick of rebellion toward anything being expected of me. I internally feel as if structured worship is wrong. This is a stellar example that our feelings aren’t always right.

But habits that remain contained in Sunday morning are not what I’m talking about.

Here’s an example. I work in a ministry. We start out every shift with prayer, covering needs of the day, prayer for our donors, and any specific requests we have from staff. When I first started working there, I would pray for whatever was on my heart as well as whatever prayer card I had been assigned. After a few months, I closed a prayer one day with this sentence; “Lord, please help us to be encouraging and edifying to everyone we come into contact with, and glorifying to you, Amen.”

As I finished praying, I kept thinking about that phrase, and how much I liked it. In a way, that prayer sums up the basics of what I, as a Christian, want my daily life to be about. I want to encourage and edify those around me, regardless of whether they are believers or not, and glorify the Lord in how I move about my day. The next day, I found myself wanting to close my prayer in the same way. I didn’t, because, well, that would be too structured! In my mind, structure or repeated phrases equalled an inauthentic prayer.

I felt nagged by the Holy Spirit all week about that one simple sentence. The day came when I closed prayer that away again, then again. Another day I use that ending while praying with my husband before we parted ways in the morning. It soon became a regular part of my prayer life, even if I didn’t quite admit it to myself yet.

Then I started thinking about hand-raising. Yep, I’m one of those people who raises hands, claps, and says “amen!” more times than I can count on a given Sunday. My body gets involved in worship in these ways, because I can’t fly around the room in heavenly raptures like I my spirit wants to.

One day, as I raised my hands, I was wresting with a certain area of life that the song we sang described. As tears fell down my face, I upturned my palms; a physical reflection that I was handing over the issue to the Lord.

This then became a habit. When I raise my hands in worship, I often lower my head and lift my palms to heaven, as I remind myself that I am submitted to God and that His grace is the only thing in which I can boast.

The point I’m circling the drain on here is that I’ve been starting to challenge my own internal opposition to structure and spiritual habits, and I think it’s an area worth thinking about.

Our bodies (flesh) often don’t want to submit to God. We are disposed to not submit, with our built in sinful nature. While our first and foremost work to combat this sinful nature and rebellious tendency must be through prayer and meditation on the word of God, our physical bodies are involved in this process as well.

What we do with our bodies matters. How we use our bodies to interact with others matters. The way we conduct our bodies matters. The words we speak and the prayers we pray matter, because they have real affect on our brains, our thoughts, and our souls.

Either we use our bodies and voices to worship, submit, and serve, or they stagnate and turn toward selfishness.

How can you use your body to worship and serve?

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.” Romans 12:1

He who is Mighty has done a great thing!

-M-