Blessed is the man who listens to me, Watching daily at my gates, Waiting at the posts of my doors. Proverbs 8:43 NKJV
Life is nothing but a collection of days, so whatever dominates our day will dominate our lives. We are creatures of habit. We do not decide our destiny; we only decide our habits and our habits determine our destiny. It is true that who you are today is a result of what you did yesterday; therefore what you will become tomorrow will be determined by what you do today.
Someone said, “Thoughts produce acts, acts produce habits and habits produce character.” So what are your thought trends today? It is imperative that we realize we are walking bundles of habits, that is the only way we will pay attention to their formation. We form our habits and our habits form us. Dr. Michael Mitchell, author of Building Strong Families wrote, “Approximately 90 percent of what we do everyday is governed by the habits in our lives.” It is said, a bad habit takes twenty-one days to break and a good one takes twenty one days to make. Habits are the best of servants and the worst of masters.
The chains of habit are usually too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken. What habits are you forming today? Because if they are the wrong ones or the good ones, they will eventually form you.
Success and failure are separated by the kind of habits you follow daily. Champions realize that their habits determine their destination so they cultivate the right ones. You can only qualify a habit by looking at the future it will produce.
It only requires a few “right things” in your day to make a lot of “right things” happen in your life. Remember, life is just a collection of days and whatever dominates your day will dominate your life. I believe that the difference between success and failure is in what habits you master. Nothing can stop a person who has built and mastered the right habits.
The psalmist said in the 34th verse of the 8th chapter that blessed is the man who waits DAILY at the gates of the Lord. I believe more in the one who prays 5minutes a day but does it daily than one who prays five hours a day and does it once a month. It is better to do it in small quantities on a daily basis than in irregular quantities. I am just using prayer as an example, I hope you get the drift. The psalmist says you are blessed if you do it daily, not monthly or occasionally but DAILY, in other words it has to be a habit for it to be a blessing to you.
I can also argue that if you spend time daily away from the gate of the Lord, you will be … you finish it. Ladies and gentlemen, like William Ernest Henley said it in his poem Invictus, “I am the master of my fate” I’d encourage you to start with the right thoughts which will be followed by the right act, then produce the right habits which will eventually determine a destiny that will be recorded in the annals of history not one that will be remembered only in infamy.
I’ll leave you for now. If we don’t meet again, I’ll see you at the dinner table in Papa’s house.
Pastor King