(posted 9 months ago for Redeemer Men's group)
Definition: Habituation
“Habituation is a decrease in response
to a stimulus after repeated presentations. For example, a novel sound
in your environment, such as a new ring tone, may initially draw your
attention or even become distracting. After you become accustomed to
this sound, you pay less attention to the noise and your response to the
sound will diminish. This diminished response is habituation.”
Psychology.com
‘Habituation’; our brain’s function at pushing the
mundane, everyday, constant, monotonous things of life to the margins …
so far in the background we literally don’t pay any attention to them at
all. For example, at this very moment you are reading this post
because it is Novel (key word); you’ve never read it before so it has
your attention. Yet also at this very moment your skin’s nerves are
sending billions of stimuli to your brain saying, “I’m warm”, ”I’m being
touched”, “This is scratchy”, on and on, every nerve, every
micro-second. But your brain has ‘habituated’ all of those stimuli and
you literally pay no attention to them UNLESS a
group of them scream out “You just slammed me into the corner of the
desk!!!”; that’ll get your attention every time! And the reason is this
new sensation is novel. Anything and everything can and will be habituated (except pain) given the right environment.
All of this to make my point. Have any of us habituated
our God? Let me state it more clearly and accurately … every last one
of us has habituated God! God has lost His novelty.
We no longer pray or read the Word or are excited by worship or going to
church. Our hearts grow inattentive to the Gospel … “same old, same
old”; or as Kevin likes to say from the pulpit, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got
it!”. That’s habituation, plain and simple. While the term
‘habituation’ is a relatively new discovery and definition in
psychology, the Bible speaks of it frequently, using words like
forgotten, forget, forsake, or (not) remembering.
Can we read this striking verse and not be moved,
“Therefore thus says the Lord God: Because you have forgotten me and
cast me behind your back, you yourself must bear the consequences …”?
So often the consequences of habituating God are the
commonly descriptive phrases such as, “I’m in a desert”, “I am dead
inside”, “I just don’t feel His presence”, “I haven’t prayed in days”,
etc.
Modern psychologist would say the remedy for habituation is novelty.
But how do you find novelty in something that is constant, monotonous,
mundane? You simply work at it mentally. You literally force your mind
to find novelty in the mundane.
For instance, if your wife has become habituated and your
relationship has lost its spark, you take her flowers, compliment her,
study her anew, pay attention to how she moves, talks, etc. This is
secular psychology. Does it work? I am sure to some degree … but two
important things are missing.
- Psychology techniques never get to the
heart. The end of their plan is a happier marriage (from the above
example of habituating your wife) which, at its core really means a
happier ME. But for the Christian husband the primary reason for
keeping your wife (or job or prayer life, etc.) novel is to glorify God;
to be obedient to His Word. It is the heart of a man that must be
transformed, not his techniques, behaviors, etc.
- The Cross Chart. God Himself is not Someone who can ever
be fully known; His holiness never fully described, His grace never
fully grasped, His mercy never fully appreciated, His salvation never
fully apprehended. With God we certainly remember all that He has done
and praise Him for all of His attributes and kindnesses; but there is
still so much ground to cover and discover. We can never define the
edges of our God. God is ever-novel to those who seek Him.
Have you habituated your God?
Will you repent and say, “My God My God why have I forsaken you?”
And finally, the most reassuring thing is that God will
never habituate us. Isaiah 49:15, “Can a woman forget her nursing child
And have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget,
but I will not forget you.”
My prayer is that we spur one another on in an intimate, daily pursuit of Him.
