Ingrained

Yesterday morning, I poured myself a cup of coffee, as is my usual morning ritual, put in some creamer, and then suddenly found myself staring at my dishes in the cabinet above the counter.

Without really thinking about it, I’d opened the cabinet door.

And upon seeing the dishes, I realized that I’m in a new house and things are in different places – the sweetener I was planning to put in my coffee was no longer in the cabinet above the counter as it was in my old kitchen, it now sits on the counter right by my Chemex.

But muscle memory is a real thing and old habits die hard.

The pattern by which I make my coffee and then put cream and sweetener in is deeply ingrained in me.

I do it without even thinking about it.

Mostly because I do it almost every day.

But it got me thinking about what else should be in my muscle memory and isn’t.

What I should be doing habitually and naturally without even thinking about it.

The first thing that came to mind was that my prayer life has gotten out of whack lately and is no longer in my muscle memory (though I’m working on it).

Grace and love sometimes are not my default positions, but they should be.

And while I’ve gotten a lot better at asking what God wants me to do in many circumstances, it’s not quite at the level of being ingrained in my being.

Being a disciple, a follower of Christ, should be habitual and natural.

Our default position should be curiosity and love.

“What does God want me to do?” should be as natural a question as “why do I have to get up this morning?” 😉

We should be able to follow Christ wherever he leads without even really thinking about it most of the time.

That’s what we should be working on – both in our faith communities and at home.

Ingraining Christ into our lives.

Making our faith part of our muscle memory.

 

 

Image: SimonQ

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