Habit or routine

How often do we do something the same way over a long period of time. I used to spend a lot of time on a tractor and developed a practice of praying while I was driving it. A lot of the winter driving on a tractor on the farms that I worked on was simply following the same pattern. You didn’t have to be precise, just stay within a certain distance of the last pass that you made so it was easy to think of prayer topics while driving. It became a routine for me to take my cap off and hang it on a hook inside the cab and my boss soon realized that if the cap was off, I was talking to God, and he would go around and come back later to talk to me.

The dictionary defines the difference between as: Habits are simple, single actions that, once formed, tend to happen on autopilot; Routines are a series of actions performed in a particular order, and we have to maintain focus on them; they can’t be done on autopilot.

Looking back, I had developed a habit and was running on autopilot. I also realized that my prayer was not as effective as it could have been.

James 5: 16 Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. (KJV)

I have realized that for prayer to be effective, it needs to be thought out. Our minds need to be focused on God, and that can’t be done by habit.

If we develop a Routine, however, we can focus our mind on God and actually think about what we are asking God to do. Once we have established a routine, we have set a time and place to focus on God, we can draw closer to Him and our prayers will become more effective and we will soon learn what fervent prayer is.

“I bowed on my knees and cried holy

Holy, cried holy

I clapped my hands and sang glory

Glory to the Son of God” (Gaither Vocal Band)

By James Lively

Children in church

The preacher was wired or sound with a lapel mike, and as he preached, he moved briskly about the platform, jerking the mike cord as he went. Then he moved to one side, getting wound up in the cord and nearly tripping before jerking it again. After several circles and jerks, a little girl in the third pew leaned toward her mother and whispered, “If he gets loose, will he hurt us?”

Six-year-old Angie and her four-year-old brother Joel were sitting together in church. Joel giggled, sang, and talked out loud. Finally, his big sister had enough. “You’re not supposed to talk out loud in church.” “Why? Who’s going to stop me?” Joel asked. Angie pointed to the back of the church and said, “See those two men standing be the door? They’re hushers.”

A little boy was in a relative’s wedding. As he was coming down the aisle he would take two steps, stop and turn to the crowd (alternating between bride’s side and groom’s side). While facing the crowd, he would put his hands up like claws and roar. So it went, step, step, ROAR, step, step, ROAR all the way down the aisle. As you can imagine, the crowd was near tears from laughing so hard by the time he reached the pulpit. The little boy, however, was getting more and more distressed from all the laughing, and was also near tears by the time he reached the pulpit. When asked what he was doing, the child sniffed and said, “I was being the Ring Bear.”

A little boy opened the big and old family Bible with fascination, and looked at the old pages as he turned them. Suddenly, something fell out of the Bible, and he picked it up and looked at it closely. It was an old leaf from a tree that had been pressed in between the pages. “Momma, look what I found,” the boy called out. “What have you got there, dear?” his mother asked. With astonishment in the young boy’s voice, he answered: “I think it’s Adam’s suit!”

Helpful Hint

Did you know all these wonderful things a “Bounce sheet” can do? (Continued from December 2025 Newsletter)

+ Freshen the air in you car – Place a sheet of Bounce under the front seat.

+ Keep the shock away – Place a sheet in your coat pocket to avoid the shock you get getting in and out of the car in the winter.

+ Clean baked-on food from a cooking pan – Put a sheet in the pan, fill with water, let sit overnight, and sponge clean. The anti-static agents apparently weaken the bond between the food and the pan while the fabric softening agents soften the baked-on food.

+ Eliminate odors in wastebaskets – Place a sheet of Bounce at the bottom of the wastebasket.

+ Collect cat hair-rubbing the area with a sheet of Bounce will magnetically attract all the loose hairs.

+ Eliminate static electricity from venetian blinds – Wipe the blinds with a sheet of Bounce to prevent dust from resettling.

+ Wipe up sawdust from drilling or sand papering – A used sheet of Bounce will collect sawdust like a tack cloth.

+ Eliminate odors in dirty laundry – Place an individual sheet of Bounce at the bottom of a laundry bag or hamper.

+ Deodorize shoes or sneakers – Place a sheet of Bounce in your shoes or sneakers overnight so they smell great in the morning.

+ Another thing you can do with them is to hang the sheets outside your doors to keep the flies from congregating and getting in your house every time the kids open the door. (You don’t have to use the expensive sheets either, the no-name brand dryer sheets work well)

+ Keep mice from getting into stored things in a camper by placing a Bounce sheet with what ever you are storing, or around pipes and holes.