Overcoming old habits

I’m learning how to use a new piece of software. It is a challenge. One of the functions takes several steps and what seems like forever. Since this function is important and I need it, that part of using this software has become a tedious and almost dreaded process, but it has also become a habit.

Finally the light dawns. I discovered that this tedious function can be done another way. Instead of taking minutes, I can do it in seconds. The menu not only offers the function, but it has a shortcut that uses one keyboard stroke. I am released from the repetition and simply delighted at the freedom of it. Yet now and then, the habit kicks in. I begin those old steps and then shake myself and wonder what I am doing. This is so silly.

I thought of that when I read today’s devotional verse. It is about the challenge of living and the frustration of repeating things and feeling as if I do not know what I am doing. It is also about finally understanding how to walk with God in those matters, and learning how to overcome the pull of going back to my habit of doing those things without Him.

So Jesus said to them, “The light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going.” (John 12:35)

Instead of a relatively simple task of finally figuring out how software works, God is continually teaching me how to do things His way. Instead of fumbling through life in my own strength, He offers me a far better way. It is like being given light in a dark place.

The author of today’s reading likens that fumbling without Christ to being lost in a cave and struggling in the dark. Finally a tiny point of light is seen and the lost person gets out of the cave. The silly part would be if he decided that he liked it in the dark and turned back into the cave. That would be the same idea of me returning to my 14-step process of making that software do what I wanted it to do instead of doing it in one easy step. How foolish.

In the more important matters of how to live my Christian life, Jesus offers examples and instructions for each situation and challenge. He is my Light and He gives me light. When I finally “get it” I need to put it into practice. Otherwise, the darkness of meeting those challenges in my own strength will overtake me and I will again be back in the situation of not knowing where I am going.

This is one of my greatest challenges. I know the way out of the cave. I can find the path that gets me into light. My problem is to stay walking on in until it becomes my lifestyle. Far too often I fail to keep at it, walking confidently and obediently in the light until I am well out of the cave.