We Are Creatures of Habit. 
     We get up every morning about the same time, we run through the 
same routines as though diligently memorized – Turn off the alarm, use 
to bathroom, turn on the coffee, take a shower, brush your teeth, shave, 
comb your hair, dress, sit down for a brief coffee and breakfast, and 
off to work.
     Sound familiar?  Perhaps your routine is somewhat different than 
mine, but it is a routine nonetheless. We all establish routines, or 
habits. It is the way we live. We generally swing a golf club the way we 
always have, we drive with the same idiosyncrasies we always did, we 
dress a certain way, comb our hair the same every day. We even have 
patterns for the way we brush our teeth!  


We Are In a Rat Race. 
In the western world we all fall into macro-habits, along with the rest 
of our nation. Generally, we let the world squeeze us into its mold. 
Conformity keeps us from standing out like sore thumbs. George Barna, of 
the Barna Research Foundation, has found that by in large American 
Christians are not much different than the culture around them. They 
spend money the same, they watch the same amount of television, and the 
same programs. They have about the same stated values, incur about as 
much debt, read the same newspapers and magazines, and go to church 2.5 
times per month. It is as though we were automatons, mass-produced 
clones of a post-industrial age,.or cookie-cutter Christians stamped out 
in the same factory with little or no variety from the rest of the 
cheaply produced wares of an over-commercialized society.


Did You Ever Watch a Gerbil?
     It is fascinating what a little rat can teach us! Gerbils are 
glorified rats, domesticated as house pets, shoved in cages, fed 
pellets, and basically stink up the house. Gerbils are known for their 
nocturnal hyper-activity.  Every night, though they should know better 
by now, they climb aboard their spinning wheel and begin the race of a 
lifetime, chasing who-knows-what to get who-knows-where, just as fast as 
their little stinky feet can carry them. So what’s the point?  Who knows 
but they all do it, and always have as far as we know, so the habit goes 
on and on generation after generation. Parents teach it to their 
children (monkey see monkey do), those children in turn pass it on to 
their offspring and so on it goes. 
     We are just like gerbils. We run the same gambit of spinning wheels 
that our ancestors did before us. We pattern ourselves to run the rat 
race, perhaps believing against hope that we will somehow run it faster 
than our predecessors and win some glorious prize. (Yummy! Another box 
of pellets!) What is the point anyway?  
     We see Christians falling into the same ruts with the rest of the 
world, running faster and faster, earning and spending more than their 
predecessors, and all the while asking themselves, "What am I doing 
anyway?" Heart attacks, strokes, nervous breakdowns, divorces, are just 
as prevalent among Christians as with their counterparts in the world. 
STOP THE WORLD I WANT TO GET OFF!  


It Was Not Always This Way.
     There was a time when Christians found the secret of a fulfilling 
life. Years ago saints on every continent knew the secret of joy and 
true satisfaction that comes from an intimate walk with God. There is a 
cost to that walk. It cannot be had while with hold hands with the world 
and run to the beat of their drums. God speaks to his children of every 
age and calls to them in quiet whispers, "Be still and know that I am 
God."  and again, "In quietness and confidence would be your strength…"  
Unfortunately, as with the people of Israel, so it is with us. The 
epitaph is the same, –   "but you would not." Throughout the centuries 
God has had his called-out-ones, the Augustine’s, the Francis of 
Assisi’s, Madam Guyon’s, and the AW Tozer’s, who longing and heart’s 
desire is to know God. 

Choose Ye This Day
     Solomon said it well for all of us, "There is a way that appears 
right unto man but then end of it is the ways of death."  The choice is 
yours. It is chosen every day of your life. We are not talking here in 
this booklet about a newfangled  prayer fad, or some fantastic or novel 
prayer technique or discovery. We are talking about a decision to change 
our lifestyles, beginning with our prayer lifestyle. It is a decision to 
become "men and women apart," ones who dain to walk with God as Enoch, 
Moses, and Elijah. Men and women who consider it more important to be 
known at the throne in heavenly places than to be rich and famous in 
earthly values. Men and women who are willing to trade all the riches of 
Egypt to sit at the feet of the Master and know Him, whom to know is 
life eternal. 

     In this book we will talk much about time and stillness for that is 
the crisis of our age – so many time-saving technologies, but little 
time for the Savior. Our challenge is not so much of strategy as it is 
of priorities. We challenge you to change your life, by changing your 
life aspirations. We challenge you to change the way you do prayer, and 
begin living a life of prayer. We challenge you to sacrifice sacred time 
– minutes, hours, yes, even days and weeks, to the Savior’s call to come 
apart.