Simple Spiritual Habits: Ctrl+S

“Watch yourselves, so that you do not lose what we have worked for, but that you may be fully rewarded” ~2 John 1:8

Being an English Major in College required me to write lots of papers…lots. Some of these Undergraduate papers could exceed 20 pages plus my Works Cited page. This meant I had to work late into the night (or morning), especially during Finals week. Towards the end of Freshman year, while completing a paper at an unreasonable hour, I knew I could no longer focus. I shut down my computer and went to bed. After a few hours of sleep, to my horror, I realized I had forgot to click “Save.” So much of what I had worked on was gone, lost in the realm of minute circuits, beyond my recovery. I couldn’t get back the hours I spent on it nor the sleep that I lost. I had to start again.

Building Simple Spiritual Habits

Our faith grows the same way, through simple spiritual habits practiced day after day.

Saint John, Jesus’s Apostle, writing his second letter nearly 100 years after Jesus’s birth, implores his readers, “do not lose what we have worked for.” A Christian never stops learning or growing deeper in the Faith because we live in the “world without end” (Glory Be); however, we can lose what we have learned. Expositor’s Greek Testament Commentary on 2 John 1:8 notes, “Their danger lay in taking up with false teaching and losing the comfort of the Gospel in its simplicity and fulness.” This danger carries with it tangible ramifications in the next life where “each will be rewarded according to his own labor” (1 Cor. 3:8). What we have worked for and continue to work for may sometimes seem abstract now, but it will not always be that way.

After my Freshman year, I knew going into my Sophomore year and beyond, I had to be more diligent about saving my work. Simply and quickly clicking Ctrl+S would save me from countless hours of wasted time and frustration. In the same way, we must form simple, spiritual habits so we do not to lose our spiritual progress.

Always improve the present moment.