EVERY year we promise ourselves that this year will be different.
We’ll get fitter, save more, be kinder, drink less, worry less.
Yet within months many good intentions have quietly disappeared, and we drift back to the old patterns.
The problem usually isn’t our goals; it’s our habits.
You don’t rise to the level of your dreams, you fall to the level of your daily routines.
If you want to become the ‘you’ you wish you were – more patient, less angry, more present with family, less controlled by your phone or your temper – well, that won’t happen by accident.
The Bible is surprisingly honest about this struggle.
The apostle Paul wrote: ‘I do not understand what I do.
‘For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.’
He knew what it was to feel stuck in unhelpful patterns, but he also discovered hope – not in trying harder, but in turning to Jesus, who offers forgiveness, power for change and a new start.
Change still involves our choices, such how we can make good habits more obvious, attractive, easy and satisfying to follow.
But Christians believe that when those habits place us in Jesus’ presence, something deeper happens: we’re not just tweaking our lives, we’re being re-shaped.
So here’s a gentle invitation: What’s one habit you could start, and one you could leave behind, that would move you toward the person you long to be?
And what if you asked Jesus to walk that journey with you?
Chris Simpkins is lead pastor of Finchampstead Baptist Church.
Sunday services take place at the FBC Centre at 10.30am.
For information, visit: finchampstead.com
