Habit - Chambers, Oswald

In the conduct of life, habits count for more than maxims, because habit is a living maxim, become flesh and instinct. To reform ones maxims is nothing; it is but to change the title of the book. To learn new habits is everything for it is to reach the substance of life. Life is but a tissue of habits.

Amiel 11

Mans soul the scene of habit

Plasticity, then, in the wide sense of the word, means the possession of a structure weak enough to yield to influences, but strong enough not to yield all at once.

James

Beware of dividing man up into body, soul and spirit: man is body, soul and spirit. Soul has no entity, it depends entirely upon the body, and yet there is a sub- tle spiritual element in it. Soul is the rational expression of my personal spirit in my body, the way i reason and think and work. Habits are formed in the soul, not in the spirit, and they are formed in the soul by means of the body. Jesus christ told his disciples that they must lose their soul, i. E. , their way of reasoning and looking at things, and begin to estimate from an entirely different standpoint. For a while a born-again soul is inarticulate, it has no expression; the equilibrium has been upset by the incoming of a totally new

Spirit into the human spirit, and the reasoning faculties are disturbed. In your patience possess ye your souls, says jesus; that is, the new way of looking at things must be acquired with patience. On the basis of his redemption jesus christ claims that he can put into my personal spirit his own heredity, holy spirit; then i have to form character on the basis of that new disposition. God will do everything i cannot do, but he will do nothing he has constructed me to do. Our virtues are habits as well as our vices. God does not give us our habits, but he holds us responsible, in proportion, for the habits we form. For instance, god does not hold a child born in the slums responsible in the same degree for its habits as he does a child born in a christian home. The fact remains, however, that we form our own habits. God gives us a new disposition, but he gives us nothing in the shape of character. We have to work out what god works in, and the way we work it out is by the mechanical process of habit.

(a) the mental phase (philippians 4:89; 2 corinthians 10:5)

By the mental phase is meant, thinking that can be stated in words. There is a great deal of thinking that cannot be expressed in words, such as that which is stirred by susceptibility to the beauties of nature, or art or music; that is spirit not yet made rational in soul. We are responsible for our habits of thinking, and paul in these passages is dealing with the phase of mental life in which a man can choose his thinking and is able to express it in words. The old idea that we cannot help evil thoughts has become so ingrained in our minds that most of us accept it as a fact. But if it is true, then paul is talking nonsense when he tells us to choose our thinking, to think only on those things that are true, and honourable, and just, and pure.

We may take as an example of mental habit that of answering letters on the day on which they are received. Here what is habitual and automatic is not the process of writing the reply, but the writing of the reply on the same day on which the letter was received.

Stout

The point is that we make a mental decision to do a certain thing, and the habit of doing it grows until it becomes absolutely mechanical. Remember, then, we can and we must choose our thinking, and the whole discipline of our mental life is to form the habit of right thinking. It is not done by praying, it is done only by strenuous determination, and it is never easy to begin with.

(b) the moral phase (romans 6:1119; 2 peter 1:58)

The spirit of god through the apostles bases on the mechanism that is alike in everyone of us, the mechanism of habit. Paul says, present your members as servants to righteousness (rv); peter says, adding on your part . . . (rv). There is something we have to do. Mans soul is weak enough to yield to influences, but strong enough not to yield all at once. The phrase the freedom of the will is a catch phrase that has more of error than of truth in it. We are all so made that we can yield to an influence that is brought to bear upon us, and if we keep ourselves long enough under right influences, slowly and surely we shall find that we can form habits that will develop us along the line of those influences.

The peculiarity of the moral habits, contradistin- guishing them from the intellectual acquisitions, is the presence of two hostile powers, one to be gradually raised into the ascendant over the other. It is necessary, above all things, in such a situation, never to lose a battle. Every gain on the wrong side undoes the effect of many conquests on the right.

Bain 12

The idea is that of winding up a ball of wool. Let the ball drop, and infinitely more is undone than was wound in the same time. This is true of moral and spiritual habits. If once you allow the victory of a wrong thing in you, it is a long way back again to get readjusted. We talk on the moral and spiritual line as if god were punishing us, but he is not, it is because of the way god has constructed mans nature that the way of transgressors is hard. When once we begin the life with god on the moral line we must keep strictly to it. In the beginning the holy spirit will check us in doing a great many things that may be perfectly right for everyone else, but not right for us in the stage we are in. We have to nar- row ourselves to one line, and keep ourselves narrow until our soul has gained the moral habit. The maimed life is always the characteristic to begin with (see mat- thew 5:2930), but our lords statements embrace the whole of the spiritual life from beginning to end, and in matthew 5:48 (rv) he says, ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect.

Never go contrary to your conscience, no matter how absurd it may be in the eyes of others. Con- science is to be our law in conduct, but paul says it is not his own conscience, but the conscience of his weak brother that is his guide (1 corinthians 8:913).

The characteristic of a christian is that he has the right not to insist on his rights. That will mean that i

Refuse to do certain things because they would cause my brother to stumble. To me the restrictions may be absurd and narrow-minded, i can do the things without any harm; but pauls argument is that he reserves the right to suffer the loss of all things rather than put an occasion to fall in his brothers way. The holy ghost gives us the power to forgo our rights. It is the application of the sermon on the mount in practical life; if we are jesus christs disciples we shall always do more than our duty, always do something equivalent to going the second mile. These are some of the moral habits we ought to form.

(c) the mystical phase ( john 15:4)

Our lord did not say, ask god that you may abide in me; he said abide in me, it is something we have to do. Abiding in jesus embraces physical, mental and moral phases as well as spiritual. How am i going to acquire the spiritual habit of union with christ in gods sight? First of all by putting my body into the condition where i can think about it. We are so extraordinarily fussy that we wont give ourselves one minute before god to think, and unless we do we shall never form the habit of abiding. We must get alone in secret and think, screw our minds down and not allow them to wool-gather. Difficult? Of course it is difficult to begin with, but if we persevere we shall soon take in all the straying parts of our mental life, and in a crisis we shall be able to draw on the fact that we are one with jesus in gods sight.

One must first learn, unmoved, looking neither to the right nor left, to walk firmly on the strait and narrow path, before one can begin to make ones self over again. He who every day makes a fresh resolve is like one who, arriving at the edge of the ditch he is to leap, forever stops and returns for a fresh run. Without unbroken advance there is no such thing as accumulation of the ethical forces possible, and to make this possible, and to exercise us and habituate us in it, is the sovereign blessing of regular work.

Bahnsen

In the mystical life the majority of us are hope- less wool gatherers, we have never learned to brood on such subjects as abiding in christ. We have to form the habit of abiding until we come into the relationship with god where we rely upon him almost unconsciously in every particular.

Mechanical scientific side of habit

Man is born with a tendency to do more things than he has ready-made arrangements for in his nervecentres. James

(a) the physical side ( job 14:19)

In physical nature there is something akin to habit. Flowing water hollows out for itself a channel which grows broader and deeper, and after having ceased to flow for a time, it will resume again the path traced before. It is never as easy to fold a piece of paper the first time as after, for after the first time it folds naturally. The process of habit runs all through physical nature, and our brain is physical. When once we understand the bodily machine with which we have to work out what god works in, we find that our body becomes the greatest ally of our spiritual life. The difference between a sentimental christian and a sanctified saint is just here. The sanctified saint is one who has disciplined the body into perfect obedience to the dictates of the spirit of god, consequently his body does with the greatest of ease whatever god wants him to do. The sentimental type of christian is the sighing, tear-flowing, beginning-over-again christian who always has to go to prayer meetings, always has to be stirred up, or to be soothed and put in bandages, because he has never formed the habit of obedience to the spirit of god. Our spiritual life does not grow in spite of the body, but because of the body. Of the earth, earthy, is mans glory, not his shame; and it is in the earth, earthy that the full regenerating work of jesus christ has its ultimate reach.

(b) the physiological side (mark 9:21)

Every nervous affection makes a groove in the brain. Dr. Carpenter, 13 the great physiologist, suffered from habitual neuralgia all the days of his life, the only time he was free from it was when he was lecturing. He said himself it was simply because the nerves had got into the habit. What a medical man aims at in the case of nervous affections is to forcibly cut short the attacks so as to give the other physical forces possession of the field. Nervous trouble can be cured by sudden calamity, by something that stops the whole nervous system and starts it again in another way; and it can be cured suddenly by the power of god. In the case of the demoniac boy our lord did not deal with him on the medical line but on the super natural line. There was no gradual, take a little holiday, but a sudden and emphatic breaking off, simply because our lord recognised the way god has made the nervous system. No power on earth can touch a nervous trouble if i have submitted to it for a long time, but god can touch it if i will let him. I may pray for ever for it to be altered but it never will be until i am willing to obey. The arresting may be terrific, a tremendous break and upset, but if i will let god have his way he will deal with it.

(c) the psychical side (philippians 2:1213)

Man is born with a tendency to do more things than he has ready-made arrangements for in his nerve centres. For instance, we are not born with a ready- made habit of dressing ourselves, we have to form that habit. Apply that spiritually; when we are born again, god does not give us a fully fledged series of holy habits, we have to make those habits. It is the application of the theological statement that we have to transform innocence into holiness by a series of moral choices. Ask yourself how much time you have taken up asking god that you may not do the things you do. He will never answer, you have simply not to do them. Every time god speaks, there is something we must obey. We should do well to revise what we pray about. Some of the things we pray about are as absurd as if we prayed, o lord, take me out of this room, and then refused to go. We have to revise and see whether we intelligently understand what god has done for us; if he has given us the holy spirit, then we can do everything he asks us to do. If our body has been the slave of wrong habits physi- cally, mentally and morally, we must get hold of a power big enough to re-make our habits and that power lies in the word regeneration. If any man be in christ, he is a new creature, that means this marvellous thingthat i may be loosened from every wrong habit i have formed if only i will obey the spirit of god. Immediately i do obey, i find i can begin to form new habits in accordance with gods commands, and prove physically, mentally and morally that i am a new creation (rv mg). That is why it is so necessary to receive the holy spirit, then when god gives a command it is sufficient to know he has told me to do it and i find i can do it. Frequently god has to say to us say no more to me on this matter; dont everlastingly cry to me about this thing, do it yourself, keep your forces together and go forward. God is for you, the spirit of god is in you, and every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, shall be yours. Beware of the luxury of spiritual emotions unless you are prepared to work them out. God does the unseen, but we have to do the seen.