If you’re reading this blog, you now know that American Missionary Fellowship has changed its name to “InFaith” beginning September 1. The name “American Missionary Fellowship” had been with the mission since 1974 and served us well, but our new name, “InFaith,” reflects a desire to be in a place where we’re more attractive and relevant to today’s changing culture.

It’s a great name, “InFaith.” It’s exactly what this mission is all about, doing things in faith. But at one recent meeting, we kept referring to American Missionary Fellowship. It became a little bit of a joke. Someone would slip up, and we’d catch them, or they’d catch me.

It reminds me that habits are hard to break. It is difficult to stop doing things that hurt us, and new habits are even harder to make. It takes a long time.

I began to think about some habits in my life that I need to cultivate – more Bible reading; more prayer; spending some time alone to think, pray, and be refreshed – and some bad habits that I need to rid myself of, like tailgating and maybe going a little too fast on the freeway.

I guess my point is simply this: that this change of name has reminded me of how hard habits are to break and how important it is for us to reexamine our habits, to make sure that we’re building the right habits and causing other habits to fade away as we grow in life.