You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit

This means that our love is like second nature: it directs and propels us, often under the radar of conscious awareness, like breathing and blinking. It also means that our loves acquire direction and orientation because we are immersed over time in practices and rituals—what we’ve called “liturgies”—that affectively and viscerally train our desire

since our hearts are made to find their end in God, we will experience a besetting anxiety and restlessness when we try to love substitutes.

This architectural mode of enclosure and enfolding suggests sanctuary, retreat, and escape. From the narthex entry one is invited to lose oneself in this space that channels the pilgrim into a labyrinth of octagons and circles, inviting a wandering that seems to escape from the driven, goal-oriented ways we inhabit the “outside” world. The pilgrim

To be conformed to the image of his Son is not only to think God’s thoughts after him but to desire what God desires. That requires the recalibration of our heart-habits and the recapturing of our imagination, which happens when God’s Word becomes the orienting center of our social imaginary, shaping our very perception of things before we even thi

Jesus is a teacher who doesn’t just inform our intellect but forms our very loves. He isn’t content to simply deposit new ideas into your mind; he is after nothing less than your wants, your loves, your longings. His “teaching” doesn’t just touch the calm, cool, collected space of reflection and…

Our desires are caught more than they are taught.

“Your deepest desire,” he observes, “is the one manifested by your daily life and habits.”

If you think of worship as expressive, you’ll tend to confuse ritual with “works righteousness”; that is, you will look at “liturgical” worship—Christian worship that reflects ancient forms and practices—as insincere ways that people try to “earn” God’s favor.

You are what you love because you live toward what you want.