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.
