Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Monday Meditations.

To start the week off right, the phrase we're going to be meditating on is how God reforms our routines.

So let's start off with Exodus chapter 16. The people of Israel have just been delivered from slavery.

The Red Sea has closed behind them, their chains

are finally broken, and yet freedom to them feels unfamiliar. They miss, they actually miss,

they miss the certainty of Egypt's rations. Isn't that just like us? We beg God for deliverance, and when he brings it, we complain because it doesn't feel like we were used to.

God, in His mercy, doesn't send them back.

He sends them manna.

He gives them a new rhythm, a daily deliberate dependence. And why?

Because old habits do not die easily, and I know many of us are very familiar with that statement.

Slavery shaped your soul, and freedom must form you all over again.

The desert became their training ground, not just to teach them trust, but to force it into

their bones through repetition, through need.

And there is something about the wilderness that truly strips us down to who we truly are.

It is there in that barren land between bondage and promise where God begins the holy work of Reformation,

not only of our surroundings, but of our very selves.

And so we tend to think that habits are small.

We think that they're mundane things.

But in truth, habits are spiritual battlegrounds. Your character is not made in your moments of glory.

It is forged in the choices no one sees.

Every cup you drink, every word you say, every time you rise, you scroll, you speak, or you pray.

These things shape you. And that is why spiritual formation is not just

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