The hard must become habit.
The habit must become easy.
The easy must become beautiful.
– Doug Henning

A tree may always be known by its fruit, and a true Christian may always be discovered by their habits, tastes and affections.
~ J.C. Ryle

Some people think they should reap every day, but reaping requires sowing. Think about what you want and begin sowing now. Reaping will come.
– Renovare’

Sow a thought and you reap an action
Sow an act and you reap a habit
Sow a habit and you reap a character
Sow a character and you reap a destiny
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Habit is good. Most of the really important things we do in life, we do out of habit. We eat, sleep, make love, shake hands, hug our children out of habit. Some things in life are too important to be left to chance. Some things in life are too difficult to be left up to spontaneous desire- things like telling people that we love them or praying to God. So we do them “out of habit.” Thus, in the church we generally do the same things over and over again, week after week, telling the same stories and singing the same songs.
– Willimon and Hauerwas, Lord Teach us

We ask God to remove our character flaws, we also need to actively replace them with the opposite qualities. If we battle we selfishness, we can begin to do kind or helpful things for others. If we procrastinate a lot, we can get down to doing something that we have been avoiding. As we take action to build positive habits like these into our lives with God’s help, our prayers for change will become more effective. After all, as the Bible makes very clear, faith without works is dead (James 2:17).
– Trevor Hudson, One Day at a Time

Do not have your concert first and tune your instrument afterwards. Begin the day with the Word of God and prayer, and first of all get into harmony with Him. – Hudson Taylor

Not long ago a very wise man told me that souls who do not practice prayer are like people whose limbs are paralyzed. Even though they have hands and feet, they cannot command them. – Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle

The words flee, be silent and pray summarize the spirituality of the desert. They indicate the three ways of preventing the world from shaping us in its image and are thus the three ways to life in the Spirit. – Henri Nouwen, The Way of the Heart

Quotes from Wilderness Time by Emilie Griffin

• Since our enslavement occurs most often at the level of habit, it is at the level of habit that our liberation needs to begin.
• Spiritual formation involves a fundamental choice. Choosing to live for Jesus Christ may mean adopting a certain style of life or, perhaps more properly, a rule of life. We take on a series of spiritual practices that will open us to God’s work in our lives.
• Think of the spiritual life as a pattern, a series of concrete actions that will gently move us toward transformation in Christ. The disciplines themselves, however, are not transformative. The transformation in us is God’s work. It is a work of grace.