Lent Guide: In the Shadow of Gethsemaneಮಾದರಿ

…as usual

When I realise what the big habits are in my life and how they shape and determine my life, I am confronted with habits that aren’t good for me. If it is a habit about which the people close to me are complaining, it’s possibly an addiction. This means that it’s something I can’t get rid of, with merely a choice to not do it anymore.

Yet one of the most powerful ways to break a bad habit is to replace it with a good one. When we manage to not practice a bad habit anymore, often the addiction is transferred to something else, for example, if alcohol is replaced by caffeine or nicotine. Something better can happen when a good habit is established.

Even good habits can lose their positive potential, though. The enthusiasm, energy, and excitement at the beginning are replaced by predictability, fatigue, and boredom. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the habit has reached its expiry date. It can call for a time of discernment in which I reassess why I’m doing it and how I’m doing it.

I can lose contact with the why and be caught up in the action while I’m doing everything right externally, without really being present and intending to be with Him and awakening to His presence and work in my life.

Exercise

• Ask Him to make you aware (let you see, notice, realise, be reminded) of…

A habit you need to develop in spite of other bad habits

The big habits of your life that you can revive

• Share with Him what you think and feel about your experience

Prayer: I ask for a deep consciousness of Your love and work in my life.