Developing A Holy Habit

During this past Fall and Winter, I have been working alongside a group of women through two Beth Moore Bible studies. The first was Breaking Free. Talk about hitting the books hard and digging deep. I detailed a written journal (that I will not be posting online) of what God took me through. After a very quick breath over the holiday season, we delved into Daniel.

Before I continue, I just have to say that I think they call this season March Madness because of the wives' reactions to the amount of basketball flowing into their homes. I may be wrong, but that's my working theory at the moment. (I say this with all the love in the world and my dear H1 is rather sweet about not watching every game as I know he would like to).

Anyways. Ahem. To say that I've learned a lot in this study of Daniel would be a mild understatement. My mind has been racing through most of this and I'm loving it. I feel like I'm dusting cobwebs off my brain as I settle into a pattern of learning. Speaking of patterns, on to what I wanted to share. During week 6, one of the points Beth made in the video portion was to note Daniel's holy habit of prayer. She says:
"Consider three ways we can react in an emergency:
-We can panic
-We can become paralyzed
-We can pray
Like Daniel, we want to practice a holy habit long enough that it becomes the old habit."
Philippians 4:6-7 "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus."

A holy habit. I love that phrase. I need to walk with God so deeply, so diligently, that my reactions to crisis are of the Spirit because it is so engrained into my being. Under pressure, what comes out? At another time during this study, the point was also made that Daniel didn't get like this overnight. It started before he was taken captive to Babylon and made the choice (at the age of 15) to follow God's commands and not partake of what Babylon offered him. By the time he faced the lions' den and saw God deliver him, he was 80 years old. Consistency. According to the book of Daniel, over the course of his life, Daniel was consistent in his holy habit of prayer and in chapter 9, the angel Gabriel calls him "highly esteemed".

Like I said, there's a lot flowing through my mind at the moment. I journaled a lot of it so I could streamline my thoughts, but that will not be posted here. I just wanted to share a few things that I was thinking about, not necessarily for the first time, but more in a new light.

~H2