Habits as Guardrails, Not Rocket Fuel: A Grounded Extended Conversation with Justin Whitmel Earley

After the live program ended, the conversation continued! Join guest Justin Whitmel Earley for a bonus Grounded interview. He shares the three habits that have been the most impactful in shaping who he is as a follower of Jesus . . . and more!

Connect with Justin 

Instagram: @justinwhitmelearley
Twitter: @Justin_W_Earley 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/justinwhitmelearleyauthor

Website: https://www.justinwhitmelearley.com/

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Erin Davis: My conversation with Justin was so engaging and interesting that I wanted to keep talking. So I asked him to stick around. Here's that conversation. Welcome back to Grounded, Justin.

Justin Earley: I'm so glad you want to stick around. I wanted to stick around too!

Erin: Oh, good. Here's where I want to go. I want to talk about habits and high performers. Because I think there's a lot of us out there.

So, we've heard a lot about habits as a means to increase productivity - what's a way to look at our habits in a way that's reflective of our identity in Christ in contrast to that? Because I could see myself going all in to just try to be a better me with all of this.

Justin: You know, that's a great question. And it's a good concern. Because type A people, you're just you're always trying to do more, and you are always prone to the idea that you can justify your own, you know, everything, including your salvation. 

So, I actually like to think of habits for people like us as guardrails, rather than rocket fuel, as in, you know, left to my own devices, I'm prone to stay up later, wake up earlier, say yes to everything, add more do this and that. 

So, the habits that I pick purposely function as limitations so that I can work on avoiding the idol of thinking that I am limitless, I can be omnipresent, I can be omnipotent, I can be omniscient, you know that. That's for God to do, not me. 

So, when I do Scripture before phone, that keeps me from going right to my emails in the morning, when I do an hour with my phone off every evening, that keeps me from trying to multitask through the work day. And you know, when I should be with my family, when I practice Sabbath, as you know, it turns out, I didn't invent this when you can find it buried in the Old Testament, this this rhythm, when I practice it, it changes my perception of the world like oh, not only can I take a day of rest, and the world will be fine. But I need it because I need to be reminded that I'm not the one who keeps the world going. 

And so, I could go on and on. But I see my most valuable habits as those kinds of guardrails, not the rocket fuel that allows me to do more. 

Now, I will say, when you rest, and when you put limits around work, and when you tend to be a spiritual formation, I get way more done as a lawyer, because I'm a healthy human being. So, they do help you do more. But that's not why you come to them.

Erin: I love that you're taking us to the heart, because it's really a heart of pride that thinks we don't need those limitations, or that we don't need to rest, we don't need Sabbath. And habits are our way of acknowledging things like left to my own devices. I'll just function in pride all the time and try to earn more power. So that's so, so good. 

I want to know what habits have been most impactful in shaping who you are as a follower of Jesus. You talked about, you know, how habits impact your work and your family but strip all that away -what habits have been most impactful for your relationship with Jesus?

Justin: I could keep talking about Scripture before phone all day because it kept me in the rhythm of the Word. But you've heard about that one. I would say the two other ones - I might sneak in a third - that have really, really just changed my relationship with the Lord are kneeling prayer three times a day, and an hour of conversation with friends every week. 

And these sound like they sound like exactly what they are. I found that even as a missionary, I was not actually a person that prayed. And it took the panic and anxiety crisis in my life to bring me to my knees literally and metaphorically to a place where I realized my day was filled with swirling thoughts of panic about can I get this done that done? And I needed, again, that guardrail to be like, pause in the morning, kneel by the bed and pray, pause in the middle of the day at work when you think you've got so much to do and you just need all the time to do it. Just stop and pray and ask that the Lord would help you to see your work as service. And I pray with my wife by the bed in the evening. 

And Erin, those little habits, they're so, so short. And yet they've created a punctuation to my day, where I actually say, I'm a busy corporate lawyer now. But I am a person that prays, I pray all the time. You know, like, ideally kind of without ceasing, there's just these little moments throughout the day. 

So that's just fundamentally reshaped my relationship with the Lord. 

And then the habit of spending an hour in conversation with friends a week, I could go all in this one, as I told you, actually, my next book coming out this summer is about friendship. But what's happening there is that American life is not going to steward you into friendship, the current is going the opposite direction, it's going towards loneliness, it's going into isolation. So, if you do nothing, you will end up a busier, maybe your wealthier person who used to have friends. 

And we Christians have to fight against that current because we know that all human beings were made for relationships with other people, were made for community, and were made for friendship. 

And so, when I say as a matter of scheduling priority, and you know, this is kind of easy, in one sense, who doesn't want to get away on a Friday night to go talk to a friend. But it's also really easy to just let things pile up. And you know, it's too busy. 

And so, when I say I'm going to spend at least one hour a week, talking with a good friend, and being vulnerable, I find this amazing thing. I become a person who is fully known by other people. And I realized that even though my friends know me fully, they stick around anyway. And when I'm fully known, and loved anyway, I'm realizing, oh, my gosh, that's the gospel. And here are these friends in my life, knowing me through and through, and sticking around with me anyway. 

And it shows me who Jesus is on a regular, weekly basis, and it changes your life. But sometimes, that idea that you're known fully and loved anyway, is just an abstract thing you say about Jesus, you don't actually know. But when you have when you're practicing vulnerability, and commitment and friendship, it becomes tangible. And we want the gospel to be tangible.

Erin: So good. Two versions of that rhythm in my life is lunch with a friend once a month, which I would have said I was doing all the time, but my calendar would actually tell you I was doing it maybe once a year, and firepit Fridays at the Davis house, it's just firepit Fridays at the Davis, you can come if you want don't have to come maybe we'll feed you maybe we won't maybe we'll have s'mores. But it's just a rhythm. And it does matter. 

You know, I didn't know exactly what you're going to say. But I had a hunch you were going to veer into one of these three buckets. And you did, reading scripture, praying, and I said going to church or being with other believers. So, we know those are the habits, the life-giving habits. But I think so many Christians struggle with those basic three, if we're honest. Why do you think that is?

Justin: The fall of man, I think, what's so important, and because I love that you just summed that up. When we talk about habits like this, it's so important for everybody to know, this is nothing new. If you read the Bible, the three of the biggest things that you'll take away are God meets you in prayer, He reveals Himself to you in the Scripture, and He changes you and community. 

So, none of this is new. But the idea that we are not. And I'll say that word again, like we're not stewarded into this kind of life, by the American current. I just want people to wake up to the idea that they are being actively formed by an invisible and yet all the more powerful culture that forms them in individualism and workaholism. And then, you know, life hacking your way to productivity and these are the opposite of saying I want my life to be informed by Scripture, not by Instagram, or this is the opposite of saying I need to pause in my day and talk to the Creator of the universe instead of thinking I can do it all. 

So, it is absolutely our natural bent to fall out of community to fall away from being under the authority of God to fall away from presence, which is why we need spiritual disciplines to put us back there.

Erin: I love it. It feels like a good place to set the plane gently down on the runway. What an important conversation. I hope you walk away encouraged. I'm walking away encouraged. Justin, I hope you'll come back when that new book about Christian friendship comes out. I would love to talk to you again soon.

Justin: I can't wait. If you'll have me back. I'll be here.

Erin: Anytime. Thank you.

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