Faith Venture

James Clear wrote Atomic Habits, a worthwhile companion to Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit. He wrote this in a recent newsletter, “Slowing down enables you to act in a high quality way. Kind rather than curt. Polished rather than sloppy. It’s hard to be thoughtful when you’re in a rush.”

These thoughts when incorporated into our daily life change our effectiveness and maybe even our health.

Imagine acting with quality in every interaction and everything we do. Our work improves. Our relationships improve. Slowing down while eating quality foods impacts our health.

When we slow down, we will notice other people. Not being in a rush, we can take time to be kind rather than curt or brusque.

Imagine yourself turning in polished work at your job or nonprofit organization or your church. See the impact quality work has on others and on your own self-esteem.

Some people set a goal and find a guide to reading the Bible in a year. You must go through many pages every day. What if you took one gospel, say Mark, or maybe part of a gospel, say the Sermon on the Mount, and read through it slowly and thoughtfully over the course of the year? Or maybe a deep spiritual teacher like one book of Thomas Merton or Henri Nouwen or even an ancient like Augustine of Hippo?

I think before I have quoted a former Navy SEAL, Jocko Willink, who advised, “Slow is smooth; smooth is fast.”

You could do worse for yourself in 2022 than bring this into your life. I know from experience.

I asked many questions yesterday for us to consider regularly to keep us on a healthy spiritual, intellectual, physical path. Today I’ve compiled a list of suggestions from a number of sources. They are all good, but way too many to implement all at once. Just consider them as suggestions. Pick one or two deficiencies and begin a habit to correct them.

Longevity and Mindset

• Prioritize sleep
• Build muscle mass, begin resistance weight training
• Move (walk, run, bike, swim)
• Minimize sugar intake
• Socialize more
• Adopt a diet more rich in plants (Eat food, not too much, mostly plants)
• Practice gratitude daily
• Find your passion and purpose
• Consume optimistic and future optimistic content (turn off TV news and other negative sources)
• Practice data-driven experimentalism
• Take ownership of your health decisions
• Practice simple habits
• Practice change as lifestyle

Drink water

• After waking up
• After workout
• Half-hour before a meal
• Before going to bed (this has been a great change for me)
• When you’re feeling sick or tired
• When surrounded by sick people

Work smarter

• Have a weekly plan
• Focus on what you’re doing
• Get organized
• Have a routine (but be flexible)
• Take breaks
• Turn phone off
• Prioritize

Hope you find some good ideas within.

Four questions for the year.

• How can I improve my spiritual health this year?
• How can I improve my physical health this year?
• How can I improve my intellectual health this year?
• How can I improve my emotion health this year?

Rather than goals or resolutions this year, how about beginning each week with a series of questions and answers?

Each week as part of our weekly review of projects and tasks, we can devote five minutes to answering each of these questions for the week:

• What one thing will I do for my spiritual health?
• What one thing will I do for my physical health?
• What one thing will I do for my intellectual health?
• What one thing will I do for my emotional health?

I hope you have completed an annual review of where you’ve been and where you’d like to go this year. Monthly reviews help you stay on track or make course corrections as necessary. Weekly reviews bring it home. You can look at the week and see the days you’ll exercise, the pattern of study and meditation, and so forth.

For me, I need to learn to ask better questions.

“We are called to prove in our own lives that Christ is born.”

I came across that challenge in my reading during Advent. Some people think that all you have to do is say you believe aloud and that you will be saved and all is good. You would not find that in any definition of discipleship.

Jesus challenged us to live as if God were right there with us. Live in the kingdom of God, he called it.

There used to be a phrase making the rounds—if you were put on trial for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?

That is looking at that thought from the outside in. If someone followed you around, like say in a spy novel, taking notes of what you did and how you acted, would they suspect that you were a follower of Jesus?

We have passed through Advent and are living the twelve days of Christmas. We celebrated in our own way the commemoration of his birth. Have we once again brought that into our lives from the inside out? Will people we meet and people observing us say, “That person proves there is a God in the way they acted”?

It’s not the megachurch pastor saying good words to thousands while masking a sordid life. It’s each and every one of us through our daily random acts of kindness that prove the birth of Jesus.