Association of Habits

Hebrews 10:25 NIV

Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another — and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

What Smell Do You Always Associate With God?

When I was in high school I joined the “Ecology Club”.  The care and protection of the earth was just beginning to be popular and although I did not have any deep thoughts about the preservation of the Rain Forrest, there were a few cute girls in the Ecology Club and the Ecology Club used to go on cool hikes and so I became an “Environmentalist”.  Our club sponsor was a shy, unassuming biology teacher who was not the most exciting of lecturers but had great ideas for hiking excursions.  One time we went to Point Reyes and one of my good friends went into the outhouse to take care of his business.  The biology teacher with all of us standing nearby snuck up to the outhouse and opened a little hatch, pointing to everyone to be quiet.  We all gathered about and he took one pebble, then another and dropped them down the hatch.  If you listened carefully, you could hear them make a splash.  Of course, the splash had a particular direction to it…right up the opening where the toilet seat rested.  Before long we heard my friend screaming…”stop it!”  “What are you doing?”  “Whoever is doing that, stop it now!”  We all were laughing so hard tears were streaming down our cheeks!  Another of our trips was to Sunol Regional Park where we, using shovels and picks, helped create part of the haystack trail.  The memory of those trips brought such warm feelings even after high school that when I bought a car while in college I used to drive up to the park with the top of my car down blaring out my latest 8-track, “Running on Empty” by Jackson Brown.  The result is that I cannot hear “Running on Empty” without immediately thinking of Sunol Park and the hikes through the hills with the ecology club.

Our mind is wonderfully designed to link associations together.  The brain connects good and bad memories with certain smells, sounds or tastes and whenever we taste certain tastes or smell certain smells, specific events almost always come to mind.  We all have certain associations etched in our mind.  I cannot hear the song “In-A Godda-Da-Vida” without thinking of typing class my sophomore year in high school and the smell of fresh bread cooking always reminds me of camping trips into the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  Do you have a certain memory associated with the sunset?  What comes to mind when you smell bacon cooking or bite into a ripe peach?  Does the smell of hot coffee brewing wring out of you a certain memory or bring to mind a particular person?  Perhaps the sound of a siren blaring or the screech of tires or the purring of a cat awakens a long lost memory for you.  Have you ever been jarred into the past by certain songs, foods and perfumes that are tied to key moments in your life?

Some associations are intentional, most are unplanned and sometimes even unwanted.  Many of us do not pay particular attention to the associations fixed in our minds but perhaps we should.  Maybe there are some connections that we would love taken out of our memory banks and some that are helpful to us.  What if we could create useful memory associations that could help us build better lives?  What if every time we smelled a certain smell, it led to us acting kindly or when we taste a certain food we became calm and full of joy?  Is it possible to organize the associations we have so that they help us become more godly and patient and full of love?  It seems clear that God’s people in the Bible often understood the value of being in control of associations they developed.  In 2 Kings 4 is the most interesting case study of Elisha and a Shunammite woman who was apparently barren or perhaps her husband was infertile.  The couple kindly built an upstairs bedroom for the prophet Elisha to stay whenever he came through town and it became a regular resting spot for him.  One day, as Elisha was relaxing on the bed in that upper room, he thought about how kind this couple had been to him so he asked his servant to go get the Shunammite woman and bring her upstairs.  While she stood in the doorway, Elisha announced to her that she and her husband would have a son within the next year.  This childless woman could not believe what he told her.  Was this God’s promise to her?  She feared it was too good to be true but it turned out just as the prophet said it would.  God gave the couple a son and he was the joy of her life.  Periodically Elisha would return to the upper room and stay there in that upper room and the bed where Elisha slept became for the Shunammite woman associated with God and his love and power.  When her precious son suddenly died, what did she do?  She placed his dead body on Elisha’s bed in the upper room.  She did not set him down anywhere else but on Elisha’s bed because it was in her mind connected with God and it was God she needed most.  And of course, God further cemented that association between the Lord’s grace and the upper room and Elisha’s bed when after getting the prophet to return with her to her home, God through Elisha raised the dead boy from the dead on that very bed.  Why of all places did the woman leave her son’s dead body on Elisha’s bed?  It is because there was a clear connection in the Shunammite woman’s mind between faith in God and that specific place in her house.

So too it was with the fisherman disciples, and we have evidence of it, that Jesus Christ formed a deeply etched association for them.  One of their earliest encounters with Him and perhaps it was the earliest, was at the shore of the Sea of Galilee where Jesus was teaching a small group of people.  It got to be too many crowding around him though so he picked one of the boats at the edge of the water and stood in it and gave the rest of His sermon.  When Jesus finished speaking, He told Peter, the owner of one of the boats, "Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch."  (Luke 5:4 NIV)  Peter’s reply was much like ours might have been if we already had been trying to catch fish all night without success.  "Master, we've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets." (Luke 5:5 NIV)  What happened next forever became etched in the minds of all the fishermen gathered about Jesus.  They all did go out into the deep water, put down their nets and shockingly, the nets quickly filled with fish.  When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.  When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus' knees and said, "Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!"  For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken… (Luke 5:6-9 NIV)

If we fast-forward three years to just after the resurrection, we find many of these same fisherman-disciples gathered once more at the Sea of Galilee and they were in some ways perplexed with Jesus since He had been raised from the dead.  Curiously, He wasn’t always recognizable to them even when in plain sight.  But then something would happen and they could see who He was.  They could never plan ahead when He would come to them and they didn’t know what to make of His several appearances.  Was He going to keep doing this the rest of their lives?  They didn’t know and it must have bothered them…this constant uncertainty about Jesus.  The men had been fishing all night to no avail and they were tired and frustrated and making their way back to shore when somebody at the water’s edge called out to them to throw their nets on the right side of the boat.  They took the recommendation seriously and when they did throw their net on the right side of the boat, there was such a large number of fish in the nets that they could not haul them into the boat.  It was then, when the association of the great number of fish and Jesus clicked in John’s mind that John immediately recognized the man on the shore.  It was Christ Himself.  The association that Jesus placed in him the day he met Christ the first time on the shore of Galilee had its effect.  Nets full of fish and Jesus Christ were connected in John’s mind; perhaps even for all of them there and the association was used by God to make Jesus recognizable.  Never again could the disciples see a net full of fish and not recall how great Jesus Christ was and how wonderful was His love for them.

Jesus used the law of association to remind us of God’s personal care for us by telling how little flowers of the desert rise up in the morning and then are gone the next day.  He said that they are beautifully clothed by God and it is obvious they are.  If God treats little flowers that lovingly, how much more does He care for you and me and give thought to our needs.  So why would we ever begin to worry about things.  God will take care of us regardless how our circumstances look.  "And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.  Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.  If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? (Matthew 6: 28-30 NIV) Every time we see little flowers, we can and ought to associate them with the provision of God and remember never to worry. 

The psalmist applied the law of association and habit to prayer by building a practice of praying in the morning.  In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation. (Psalm 5:3 NIV)  By putting into habit praying in the morning he began to associate the presence of God with the first breath of morning.  Every morning for at least that time when the sun was creeping up above the horizon, he thought about God, and trusted God and committed himself to holy living. More than that, the morning light reminded him to pray.

What if we did something like this…what if we forced associations into our habits so that we might become alert to God and what He is saying to us and what He is doing through us?  What if every time we brushed our teeth, we said the Lord’s Prayer?  We would begin to associate our toothbrush with God’s protection and love.  What if we read a bit of scripture before we turned the key to our ignition?  Our car would become a place we associate with God’s presence.  What if on our computer we put a verse that proclaims God’s wisdom about the day?  When we go to our internet sites, there will be an association linking our computer to the Lord’s holy direction.  Could we, whenever we first sit in our office chair whisper a word of praise for all the good God is going to do through us?  Soon we will see that chair as our meeting place with Jesus and it will come to mind that when we sit in that chair, we are on mission for God there.  What if we lit a scented candle in our house that smells of apple pie or strawberries and when we do so we pray for God’s peace to rest in our house?  Every time we smell that smell somewhere else it will bring us to God and His calmness will be restored to our chaotic day.  Perhaps every Thursday we could pour a glass of grape juice and pause a moment and think with a short burst of concentrated effort upon Christ’s blood poured out from His body on the Cross and how great His love is for us. Every time we see grape juice or taste it, we will be comforted to know God is merciful toward us and no matter what others think of us or how badly they criticize us, we are treasured and loved by Christ.  The common parts of our day can become switches that flip on for us in our minds God’s joy and peace and they can encourage us that if Jesus Christ is for us and really for us, what reason is there for us to worry about anything we face.  Our habits can become the most holy of habits that fill us with the joy of Jesus Christ during the common parts of our day.