Habit Formation and Sanctification
When I saw the layer of dust on my stack of books, I knew I needed a change. For months after my twins were born, I lived in survival mode, which was a necessity. We had gone from one toddler to three children in a moment, two of which were preemie newborn boys requiring to be fed every two hours on the dot to keep their weight up. I did the necessities, only the true necessities, for months while we got our hands around the world of twins.
Survival mode, however, is easy to remain in, and even once life had settled down, I still neglected reading. Rather than reading the books that formed my heart and mind, I opted for scrolling and hours of Netflix each night instead. Even though the need for survival mode had ended, I had remained within its boundaries. Recognizing my drift, I decided I had to establish a habit to change my ways.
Over the years, I’ve used habits to make changes in my life to guide myself back to a more holy path. I used alarms and journals to lay a better foundation for a habit of prayer, and the prompt of books laid and devices stowed away to renew my Bible study habits. As I delved into the world of Charlotte Mason and her Home Education Series this year, I likewise learned how to build habits towards goodness and beauty in my children as well.
Yet a question rumbled in my mind: Does habit formation cause us to trust in ourselves for sanctification rather than God?
Over the years, I’ve written much on the topic of sanctification and how it’s based on the gospel, a gift given to us by God through the Holy Spirit, not something we force by means of tools and the demands of spiritual formation. Isn’t the building of habits the same kind of legalism I and others have warned about? It depends on what you mean by habit formation. We can turn habit formation into another set of laws we must obey to become Christlike and kill sin in our own strength—or it can be another avenue in which we turn our hearts towards the work the Holy Spirit is already doing. True habit formation builds the chest, while the former habit training only focuses on the intellect or the belly.
C. S. Lewis, based on the teachings of Plato, said that the soul of man is divided into three parts: the head (intellect), the belly (passions and desires), and the chest. “The Chest—Magnanimity—Sentiment—these are the indispensable liaison officers between cerebral man and visceral man. It may even be said that it is by this middle element that man is man: for by his intellect he is mere spirit and by his appetite mere animal.”¹ The chest is our heart; not our passions and misguided desires that the world tells us to follow, but rather the part of us that should take the cold intellect and reason, and draw it together with those passions for a decision and action that is good and true. As professor Jessica Hooten Wilson explains in The Scandal of Holiness, “This part of the person is what makes us human beings. It is our heart, the place where morality is felt and willed.”² Lewis believed that the more we allow ourselves to be led by our heads or bellies alone, we become less and less human, leading to the abolition of man.
Because of the fall, our chests are corrupted by sin, just like the rest of us. Our chests don’t come fully formed; we, by the work of the Spirit and the various means of grace, must direct and form our chests. Lewis tells us how: “The head rules the belly through the chest—the seat, as Alanus tells us, of Magnanimity, of emotions organized by trained habit into stable sentiments.”³
How is the chest formed? By trained habits. But what kind of habits? Habits that direct us where the Holy Spirit is at work. Habits such as attending church, which allows us to participate in godly fellowship and the sacraments; not just reading but internalizing God’s Word (Ps. 119:11; Col. 3:16); prayer (ref); being in nature where we can see the handiwork and power of God (Rom. 1:18–20); singing God’s truth (Col. 3:16); and reading or listening to books that inspire us towards holiness or lift our gaze upward (Col. 3:1–4). Through habit training, we feed our chests with the good, the true, and the beautiful so they’re rightly informed to guide our minds and stomachs. “Watch over your heart with all diligence,” the wise man of Proverbs wrote, “For from it flow the springs of life” (Prov. 4:23 NASB).
Charlotte Mason said that building habits is akin to laying a track for a train; habits guide our chests to love and pursue what is right and hate what is not.⁴ This is different from laying down legalistic laws that we must obey to please God or make ourselves holy. Rather, this is an act of putting good things in front of ourselves so that our hearts desire the work and gifts of the Holy Spirit. As believers, we can resist or submit to the work of the Spirit, and habit formation trains us to submit. Through habits, we direct our gaze and feet in the direction the Spirit beckons us as we build the right habits.
Whether we put the effort forward or not, our chests will be influenced by something and we will build habits, whether good or bad. How will we build up our chests? What habits will we be formed by? The choice is ours.
Clive Staples Lewis, The Abolition of Man (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2001), 25.
Jesscia Hooten Wilson, The Scandal of Holiness (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2022), 39.
Lewis, 24, emphasis mine.
Charlotte Mason, Home Education, 5th ed., vol. 1, 6 vols., of The Home Education Series (Living Books Press, 2017), 109.
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