The Power of Habits

What habits does God use to transform you? Lina AbuJamra challenges us to keep them close. This is a timely reminder as we transition from summer to fall schedules.

Elisa

The Power of Habits

By Lina AbuJamra

I spent my college years struggling to maintain a daily Bible reading habit and feeling guilty that I couldn’t. Then the summer before I went to medical school, a friend advised me to pick up jogging because exercise would help sustain my mental health during medical school. Being a pragmatic person, it occurred to me that if bodily exercise was profitable to my mental health, so would Bible reading be to my spiritual health.

That summer I had heard a preacher say that it takes twenty-one days to form a habit. (I’ve since seen other numbers tossed around by various sources, but on that day, I believed the twenty-one-day rule.) That next morning, I got a calendar and started my two new habits: jogging and reading my Bible daily. Day after day for twenty-one days I crossed off boxes on a calendar, hopeful and expectant of change. By the end of that third week, I had two new habits in my life that would stay with me for decades.

When I read books about forming habits, I’m amazed that what I did that summer worked. I didn’t use any of the touted methods for making consistent choices. I didn’t order my environment just so. I didn’t overthink my goals. I didn’t second-guess my decision. I simply woke up each morning and crossed off running and reading my Bible on my to-do list because I wanted to survive medical school and become a good doctor.

Sometimes the greatest motivation for change and forming good habits is simply a good understanding of what you want to be. Do you want to be a godly person? If so, what might you build into your life to help you grow in a way that aligns with what you desire?

Today while my knees are too achy to run, I get on the peloton, which I do almost every single day of my life, and I still read my Bible daily. It’s not because I’m special. It’s because I have formed these habits and I now know from experience that they have paid off in my life. The truth is that once you’ve formed good habits, it would take a lot of momentum to change again.

The thing with spiritual disciplines is that they don’t save you. Transformation doesn’t happen because you do the right spiritual disciplines, but transformation is a result of positioning your life in the place where God can change you. He wants to change us.

I went through an incredibly dark season in my life where I questioned God’s goodness and his love for me. It happened suddenly in what should have been the best time of my life. I was attending a vibrant megachurch with a dynamic pastor, and I found myself on the inner circle of the church leadership team. I had just written my first book and was about to publish it with a foreword by that pastor.

Shortly before the book came out, it was becoming more and more evident that that pastor was deeply verbally and spiritually abusive to anyone who didn’t agree with him. The timing couldn’t have been worse for me, but after much prayer, I decided to leave my church home. I thought because I was acting in obedience, God would honor my decision to leave, but instead I landed on the outside of the church world, and for a while, that pastor seemed to be getting away with his poor behavior.

I struggled to understand why God would lead me to leave, then seem to abandon me. I struggled to find godly friendships. I struggled to pray. Because I was deeply wounded by a spiritual leader I had respected, I struggled with believing that God was trustworthy. I questioned my own decision-making process that had led me to an arid wilderness. That season lasted for almost ten years. I guess I’m a slow learner!

People ask me all the time what was the main reason I didn’t lose my faith during that season. The answer is easy: It was the simple habit of reading my Bible daily. Even though I wrestled with God for a long time, the very fact that I positioned myself to hear his words eventually gave God the space he needed to help me get rid of all the garbage I had built my faith around and allowed me to see him as he truly is and not as I’d made him out to be.

If you’re wondering why I kept reading my Bible daily despite my doubts about God, I can honestly tell you it was because of a deeply ingrained discipline I had formed over the years. God used my good habits to redirect my thinking. Little by little, his Word penetrated the hard places of my heart.

The goal of the Christian life is not to develop good habits or the right spiritual disciplines. The goal of the Christian life is to be with God, to love him and treasure him and hear his voice clearly. Remember, God wants your heart more than anything.

Taken from All Your Life by Lina AbuJamra. Copyright (c) 2026 by Lina AbuJamra. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press. www.ivpress.com

Lina AbuJamra is a physician, Bible teacher, and the founder of Living With Power Ministries. Her vision is to bring hope to the world by connecting biblical answers to everyday life. She is a popular conference speaker, podcaster, and the author of multiple books and Bible studies, including All Your Life, Still Standing and the Mapping the Footsteps of God series.