Good Wednesday Friends!

I’ve been thinking so much lately about what drives people to take certain inevitable courses of action. I’m talking about the programing behind the things we do over and over again. You see, I believe that nearly every human action can be traced back to a preset behavior. Understanding this allows us to feel compassion rather than rage towards the people who mistreat us.

There is a cause behind every effect. That nasty waitress on Friday night was only nasty because she just got evicted from her apartment before coming in to work that day… or she just found out her dad has cancer and only 6 months to live… or the father of her child is leaving her for another woman!

This waitress, now being under more stress than she can bare, while trying to serve you and your friends… she handles stress the way she has been programmed to handle her stress. Her current adverse circumstance triggers a preprogrammed pattern of behavior… and the result is the nastiest waitress of your entire life. Believe me, if you think you are miserable… you should imagine what she must be feeling!    

As written in the blog, Identity Transformation - A Message From Jail, I believe that some people in this world clearly have a much more difficult time SHEDDING OFF THEIR DESTRUCTIVE PATTERNS. They are programmed for failure… and even though they feel warm and fuzzy at times over the DREAM of changing their ways… the program always knocks them back down. They are simply living the way they were programmed to live… UNTIL they are reprogrammed to live differently!  

A habit is a behavior pattern acquired by FREQUENT REPETITION or PHYSIOLOGICAL EXPOSURE that shows itself in regularity or increased facility of performance. It is AN ACQUIRED MODE OF BEHAVIOR that has become nearly or completely involuntary. 

HABITS are first cobwebs, then cables! –Spanish Proverb

A HABIT cannot be tossed out the window; it must be coaxed down the stairs a step at a time. –Mark Twain

Bad HABITS are like comfortable beds… easy to get into, but hard to get out of. –Anonymous 

HABIT is either the best of servants or the worst of masters. –Nathaniel Emmons 

Most humans at least try to act differently than they are programmed… many times a day. We want to change because we KNOW that so many of our habits are leading us far, far away from our dreams. We know that unless we change, we will never experience life as we can and should!   

Everyone CAN change! God offers us many promises for behavioral transformation. Here are two…

1. We can be transformed by the renewing of our minds. (Romans 12:1-3)  This is where we take the amazing teachings of the Bible and we program them into our minds! And so, instead of thinking and acting the way some other flawed human has programmed us to think and act, we challenge these inherited thoughts and actions… we replace them with a far better program.   
2. We can live under the influence God’s Spirit and live in the state of knowing rather than a state of thinking. God is perfect and all his actions are always perfect. He promises that we can learn to walk under his influence all the time! The fruits of Gods Spirit are: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control! (Galatians 5:22-23) These are not learned behaviors… they are the qualities of living in the NOW of Gods Spirit! We can act and react like God does because he is acting and reacting through us! 

Both of these promises require FAITH and corresponding ACTION. One must believe that God is able to HELP messed up people through the process of replacing their OLD DESTRUCTIVE habits with NEW and far more CONSTRUCTIVE ones… and that God is able to bring each of us into a state of living in the NOW of Gods Spirit.  

The only other option is to forget about all this talk of transformation and just keep moving in the direction of our current habits… and that is a scary thought for most of us. So, go away from todays blog with more compassion for the people out there doing crazy things, realizing that they really CANT HELP IT… and have the courage to enter into the process of reprogramming for a beautiful future filled with amazing actions!

Have a super day everyone!