Who you are is what you do, not what you intend to do. 

We often desire great virtues like self-control, kindness, and courage or to be rid of great vices like lust, arrogance, and bitterness, but those things are not simply granted; they are built up and strengthened by habits.

Habits, what you actually do day-to-day, define who you are more than your intentions or aspirations. It would be silly to dream about traveling across town to reach home while never taking any steps to get there. Wanting the comfort and stability of home is great, but by taking no steps in that direction, your actions are senseless, fruitless, and faithless. You will spend a lot of time dreaming while you remain far from home. 

Our habits serve as the small steps that take us to our destination. 

But, this can work for the good or the bad. There are some destinations that you don’t want to reach—destinations that certain habits can lead you to.  

Suppose you make a habit of serving others before yourself, even if it comes at some sort of cost. If you take steps of daily faith, throw yourself upon God, and find time and again that He is faithful. If you act with courage daily, it will be in your bones when virtue is needed. You won’t think twice before running into the burning home to rescue those inside. 

The same may go for other examples as well regarding virtue: 

• If you make a habit of fleeing sexual immorality, you won’t flinch when inappropriate images are thrust upon you on the internet. You won’t think about it for the next two days, either. You have made a habit of honor, integrity, and self-control. You will just keep scrolling along joyfully to find what you are looking for. 
• If you habitually hold your tongue and your anger, you won’t find yourself constantly doing damage control, putting out fires that you have set. You will be a source of life and nourishment to those who interact with you.
• If you make a habit of telling the truth, you will build credibility and integrity.

Habits are what support our virtues. Virtues are often our goal and desire, but we frequently neglect the steps to them, steps of faith in our habits. Our reactions can be trained and strengthened by habits.

Alternatively, our vices are also supported by our habits.

• If you daily compromise your eyes and heart in the realm of sexual immorality, it will be no surprise that you fail spectacularly when a trial comes. Don’t be shocked to reach the destination that you have been walking towards daily.
• If you make a habit of passivity and fail to lead yourself and your family, don’t be surprised to find that your leadership is questioned, that people don’t follow you, or that you have compounded the work necessary for future faithfulness.
• If you make a habit of never apologizing, don’t be surprised if your relationships are fragile, shallow, and insecure.
• If you make a habit of wasting time, don’t be surprised to find that you aren’t entrusted with more responsibilities, are always playing catch up, or have the dreaded feeling of being “busy,” but because there is much to be done and not enough getting done.

When the opportunity comes to act with virtue or with vice, the decision is made almost instantly and reflexively, but these responses are trained and disciplined by daily habits over a long period of time.

Our habits also help us to regulate the senses.

What made the Hobbits so resistant to the one ring and its power? They had a culture and a life that didn’t play to the ring’s advantage. The ring was about power and control, something that the Hobbits knew or cared little about. They filled their days with songs, poems, gardening, and enjoying the pub with friends. The ring had little appeal to their trained appetites. To them, the ring was shocking—an evil to be avoided and destroyed, not used.

This is the type of regulation that you want from your habits. You want eyes that look upon the good so that when vulgarity is presented to you, it is seen with instant disgust. The lie doesn’t work well on you. Your habits have trained your senses.

But to someone who constantly inundates themselves with the foul, the irreverent, and the debauched, your senses will be seared.

Maybe all the world will think you silly, backward, and unenlightened, but it is far better to be a Frodo who is trained by innocence and virtue and able to resist than a Boromir trained in power and expedience who cannot resist.

Habits set the norm, alerting us to extremes. If we have habits of vice, God’s grace comes to us as an extreme gift of appealing love — a shocking arousal to holiness and light in our domain of darkness. And if we have habits of faithfulness and virtue, sin will seem shocking, unappealing, and extreme, a ghastly-smelling farce pretending to be food.

Of course, God’s grace is at hand. We ask Him for help and change, and then we take Him at His word in obedience. Here lies the faith behind daily habits. We believe that the small steps of faithfulness, or small steps of resistance, are working with our sanctification--that God is training us in righteousness (2 Tim. 3:16).

Look at who you intend to be and compare that with what you find yourself actually doing—habits that reveal who you truly are. Which direction are your steps actually taking you? Repent where necessary and obey where necessary, building solid habits that are taken with courage and faith.