Welcome to Tracks for the Journey, a podcast dedicated to your wellbeing. I’m Larry Payne, your host. I’ll be capturing helps for your growth from progressive Christian theology, psychology, science, and history. In this episode let’s travel down the trail to break bad habits, celebrate freedom, embrace God’s mercy, and even more.
PSYCHO-PATHS
I have a habit I should break. It is a practice that doesn’t build up my wellbeing or help anyone else. I’m confessing today my habit of judging the performance of public speakers. And this critique is often negative, quick to point out the failures of the person on the Zoom call, the TV pitchman, or in the corporate conference room. Maybe you have some bad habits, too. As a licensed counselor, I work with people who often need to shed for bad behaviors. Let’s work on how we can change these negative actions to have a better life.
Bad habits are, by definition, a negative factor for our wellbeing. They may bring a bad diet, hurt relationships, cause problems at work, even cause us to break the law. A wise step would be to change these habits, right? But that is hard. We delay, rationalize, or give a half-hearted, two day effort that never works. For my issue, I would note that I’ve spent 50 years in Christian ministry and hours of study about public speaking. I know a lot about what is good and what is not so good. But my habit isn’t helping me grow as a better person or a speaker improve the skills of communication.
James Clear, the author of a remarkable book entitled, Atomic Habits, offers some guidance about breaking bad habits. His book is based on modern psychological research and filled with understandable stories. He begins with a focus on becoming aware that the habit not in line with who we are or want to become. Your identity should be supported by the habits you have. James Clear says it this way, “Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to be” [38]. For example, if you want to feel satisfied with your physical appearance next summer on the beach, drinking sugar-filled soft drinks will not create that look or satisfaction. If I want to be a good mentor, then silently criticizing the facilitator doesn’t help my goal. We must be brutally honest to say, this habit does not build the identity and character I want to be. We are halfway down the path when we define who we want to be and the habits that are in our way.
Then we should take some simple actions. Clear writes, “The best way to break a bad habit is to make it impractical to do.” [172]. Grab on to this statement. It is the key to changing the parts of your life that are not helping you. But how can we do this? Clear presents four actions we can take to create barriers for the bad habit.
First, we must make the habit Invisible. He means by this that we must reduce the exposure and cues from the environment. Don’t buy sugary soft drinks. Activate a parental control to limit your own binge-watching shows. Or ban your phone for 30 minutes before bedtime if you want better sleep. I would benefit from focusing on the material being presented rather than the speaker. The first vital step is to change our environment so the bad habit is pushed away from our attention.
Second, we should make the bad action Unattractive. This is the step of honest assessment and facing the reality that my personal wellbeing is being hindered by the habit. Make a big sign for the refrigerator with the actual calorie count and sugar count of that drink. Chart the time wasted on meaningless entertainment. For me, own the fact of pride and vanity that assumes I know the best techniques as the opposite of Christian qualities of life. Face your ugly stuff and change is easier.
Third, we must make it Difficult. Clear describes this as increasing the friction to accomplish the bad actions. It’s friction, of course, that brings our car to a stop in a sudden skid. Think of the same idea about the habit you want to change. In this phase we take action. Put the TV remote in a high cabinet so it takes extra effort to turn on the show. Require two-factor authentication on your partner’s phone to access the video games. To break my critical mindset I should take notes to focus on the content so my attention is diverted from the perceived mistakes of the speaker. Be creative to set up physical barriers that put the brakes on the bad habit.
Fourth, we must make it Unsatisfying. This means changing the reward system in our brain. We can reward our consumption of healthy drinks rather than the reward of a sugar high by enlisting a partner to hold you accountable for healthy drinks. We can total the dollars saved from cable or streaming costs and reward ourselves with a new pair of shoes. We can reward doing good exercise seven days in a row by having dinner with friends. My reward system could be activated by appreciating the content offered and interacting with the speaker to offer encouragement.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that you must change everything at once. In fact, that is a sure way to fail. Clear has a great idea when we writes about the power of the 1% change. Seeking to continually improve by a little will create more lasting change than hoping for some huge breakthrough which is rarely achieved.
James Clear tells the story of Victor Hugo, the world-renowned, French author of the 1800’s. He had a deadline to produce a major novel in just six months. He felt overwhelmed. Then he did something unusual. He had his assistant collect all his clothes except for a large shawl, leaving him nothing appropriate to wear in public. He had, in effect, confined himself to the house for the next few weeks to concentrate only on the book. This broke the habit of procrastination and distraction that had blocked his creativity. He wrote furiously and passionately about a disabled man living in a cathedral who falls in love. Two weeks before the deadline, his classic work, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, was published.
James Clear sums it up this way, “You become your habits.” You can create greater wellbeing by changing the unproductive and offensive habits that are holding you back. Make them Invisible, Unattractive, Difficult, and Unsatisfying. You may not publish a classic novel but you will be happier in life.
James Clear. Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results. New York: Avery Penguin Press: 2018.
SIGNPOSTS
For inspiration the Signposts segment chases the subject of CRAZY MERCY.
Our culture holds little respect for a person who doesn’t earn their way. “Welfare queens” and men born with a “silver spoon” of riches are often scorned. We value the ethos of the “self-made man” and “try, try again.” So, we may be bothered when the Scripture says in Romans 9:16 that finding God’s favor “does not depend on human desire or effort but on God’s mercy.” It seems like God should be persuaded to bless me if I pray just right, give more money, help random strangers, or die in a just cause. That’s a contract I can understand: if I do “X” then God does “Y.”
Mercy? This quality throws the loop of reciprocity out of whack. A relationship comes into focus when mercy is considered. A judge may choose to reduce a fine as an act of mercy, or a cattleman keep a deformed calf for a pet. Mercy is messy and unpredictable. And what if God extended mercy to just anyone, especially people that aren’t following the contract? That doesn’t fit into the system!
“I will have mercy on who I will have mercy,” are the words from the ancient Hebrew Bible in Exodus 33:19, and repeated in Romans 9:15. This is a fundamental principle of theology, honoring the very nature of God and God’s work. How amazing is the miracle that God has chosen to be merciful to the entire human race through the work of Jesus, extending the grace of salvation to all? The Divine has broken the demand of the religious system that seeks to earn the blessing. Another Scripture drives home the theme. “Because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 2:4-5).
When we allow our souls to be captured by this truth it changes everything. No longer are we caught in a hamster wheel of proving ourselves with good deeds. We open ourselves to the affirmation of worth to the Divine who knows us completely and welcomes us with mercy. If we experience this fully we will change even the way we treat other people. We may grow to live out the wisdom of the apostle James, who proclaims that “mercy triumphs over judgment” (James 2:13).
Who needs your mercy today? Is it someone you’ve treated wrongly, or someone you’ve ignored? Perhaps it is your own Self, burdened with the rigid burdens of your own condemnation. Let’s embrace the truth of mercy found in the heart of God and extended to us. As the Psalmist sang, “The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and great in mercy. The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works.” (Psalm 145:8-9).
BACKTRACKS
Hey taxpayer, here’s a question for you. What percentage of your taxes go to support your local churches? If you reply, “Zero,” you owe the right answer to a man who was thrown out of his town during a bitter New England winter 386 years ago. In the Backtracks segment, connecting history and faith, let me tell you the story of Roger Williams.
Williams was a brilliant, charismatic Puritan clergyman. He grew up during the bloody religious wars that racked England for over 100 years, pitting Christian sects against one another. As a Puritan, he believed the Church of England was corrupt and should be abandoned. This led him to sail across the Atlantic to join the Plymouth Colony of Massachusetts in 1631, joining our founding fathers and mothers who wanted to establish a pure and holy church.
He also believed, just as controversial, that the government and the church should be separate. That’s where we will focus today.
The leaders of Plymouth Colony enforced their religion by the power of the state, like every government had done throughout history. As Williams preached in Massachusetts, he said this was wrong, that the church was being corrupted by the power and greed of government, and therefore the two should be separated. As a result of the dispute he was exiled from Massachusetts on September 13, 1635. He would have died in the bitter winter, except for the kindness and help of the Indians of the area. In his deepest crisis, he glimpsed a new understanding of government and faith. The next spring he was given a small plot of land from the Indians and he named it Providence, celebrating God’s provision of life and hope. Then he did something revolutionary. He wrote a charter that did not mention God. It was the first colonial charter in European history to bring people of different religious views together for a common civil work as voting equals. There would be no financial or judicial support of religion by the colony. Slowly, like-minded citizens, many fleeing persecution for their faith, gathered and built the colony of Rhode Island. In 1638 he founded the First Baptist Church of Providence, the oldest Baptist church in America. He would later leave the church to become a Seeker, longing for more in his walk with God.
Williams won a remarkable victory in the English Parliament a decade later, convincing them to grant a charter for Rhode Island that enshrined this principle he now called “soul liberty.” The same year he published a 400 page tract with the vivid name, “The Bloody Tenet of Persecution for the sake of Conscience.” In this dramatic document he called for the freedom of conscience to be recognized and upheld by the state. He further argued that the power of government lies only in the power the people grant, not some divine decree. With this work, Williams laid the foundation for religious liberty that would influence the greatest philosophers of the era and eventually be enshrined in a document we call the Constitution of the United States.
More than 360 years after Roger Williams preached in Providence, I stood in the pulpit of First Baptist Church to honor such a visionary. In reality, all Americans stand in his shadow today, living in a nation where each person is free to believe and worship according to conscience. Established religion and the state are separate, each benefitting the other, as it should be. Many nations across the world have yet to follow this wisdom and the people suffer as a result. Thank you, Roger Williams, for living through exile and starvation to capture a new order of human civilization.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/god-government-and-roger-williams-big-idea-6291280/
John Barry. Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul: Church, State, and the Birth of Liberty. New York: Viking Press, 2012.
Thank you for taking a few minutes to listen to this episode of Tracks for the Journey. If you like what you’ve heard, share a rating with your podcast provider and send a link to friends. I invite you to go to tracksforthejourney.com to find more resources for your faith journey. You can also join the community on Facebook or email me care of trackspodcast@outlook.com. TFJ is produced at the Bright Start Studio and hosted by buzzsprout.com. All rights reserved. Music is provided through Epidemic Music.
Music titles:
“A Little Jar of Happiness.” Earle Belo
“Midair” Ennio Mano