Habituation

(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.

1. 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.
2. 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.