What’s Your Custom?
As I’m reading the book of Daniel, I noticed something in chapter 6 that made me stop. Daniel 6:10 (ESV) says:
“When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem. He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously.”
Previously.
That one word caught my attention because it tells us that Daniel’s response to pressure wasn’t created by pressure. Daniel knew the decree had been signed. He knew what had been made illegal, and he knew the consequences attached to continuing to pray to God. Yet Scripture tells us that he went home, got on his knees, prayed, and gave thanks “as he had done previously.”
Prayer wasn’t something Daniel suddenly developed because trouble came. It was already his custom. The decree changed, his circumstances changed, and the threat against his life changed, but his custom didn’t.
Pressure didn’t create Daniel’s custom; pressure exposed it.
That led me to ask myself a question: What’s my custom?
What we continually return to reveals what we have become accustomed to. When pressure comes, where do we instinctively go? Do we pray, open our Bibles, and worship? Do we reach for people before reaching for God? Do we isolate, scroll, complain, avoid, or attempt to control everything ourselves?
Sometimes we don’t recognize something as a custom because we’ve simply called it “what I do.” However, repetition creates patterns, and patterns reveal what has become familiar to us. There are godly customs worth establishing, but there are also customs we’ve grown comfortable carrying that God may be calling us to confront. When we choose to be honest about those patterns, we may discover that some are not producing righteousness and others are simply weighing us down.
Hebrews 12:1 tells us to “lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely” and to run with endurance the race set before us. I love that the writer distinguishes between weight and sin because everything that hinders us may not be something we would immediately identify as sin.
Sometimes it is simply weight, something familiar that we have carried for so long that we stopped asking whether it still belongs on the journey.
If we are going to run the race set before us, then there has to be some surveying and inspection. This is where I began thinking about customs at a border.
What Are You Carrying Across the Border?
When crossing an international border, customs is concerned with what you are bringing into the territory. Some things are permitted. Some things have to be declared. Some things are restricted, and some things cannot cross the border with you at all.
I wonder how often we attempt to enter into what God has set before us while carrying customs that cannot go where He is taking us.
We have to be willing to inspect what we’ve been carrying, what we’ve gotten accustomed to, what we repeatedly return to, and whether those things belong in the territory we are entering. Maybe the question is no longer simply, “Have I carried this before?” but, “Does God want me carrying this forward?”
We can become so accustomed to carrying something that familiarity begins to feel like permission. But familiarity does not equal permission.
“I’ve always done this” does not automatically mean, “This belongs where I’m going.” “This is how I normally respond” does not mean that response should remain my custom. And “this has always been a part of me” does not mean God isn’t calling me to lay it aside.
Some customs have to be left at the border.
Daniel, however, shows us the other side of this truth because some customs absolutely need to cross with us. He entered a hostile circumstance with an established life of prayer. When pressure came, he didn’t have to develop devotion in the moment; he returned to what he had already practiced.
That challenged me because we often prepare for where God is taking us by thinking about what we need to acquire. But perhaps part of preparation is asking, “What needs to become so customary in me now that when my environment changes, this remains?”
Prayer should be able to cross the border. Obedience should be able to cross the border. The Word, worship, and gratitude should be able to cross the border.
Daniel didn’t only pray three times a day; the text says that he gave thanks. Even under the threat of death, gratitude remained part of his custom. His environment did not get to dictate his devotion.
And that is the kind of custom I want. I don’t want to wait until pressure comes to establish what I should have been practicing previously. I want my relationship with God to contain practices that are so deeply established that when circumstances shift, my devotion doesn’t have to shift with them.
But I realized there is another side to surveying a journey. We cannot only inspect what we are carrying into the land. We also have to inspect the land we are entering.
Survey the Land, Too
We may be surrounded by a culture without being called to adopt its customs.
Daniel is such a powerful picture of this. He lived in Babylon. He learned within its system, served within its government, and existed among people whose beliefs and practices differed from his own. Yet proximity did not require conformity. Daniel could inhabit the land without allowing the land to inhabit his devotion.
That distinction matters for us, too.
2 Corinthians 6:17 says, “Come out from among them and be separate.” In context, Paul is calling believers away from fellowship with idolatry and spiritual compromise. Separation, then, is not merely about physical distance from everyone who believes differently from us. There is a distinction God calls His people to maintain even while living among the surrounding culture.
So discernment cannot stop with, “what am I taking with me?” We also have to ask, “what am I entering into?”
There may be places God calls us to take refuge for a season. There may be places He tells us to abide. There may be environments He allows us to occupy while He develops, positions, or uses us there. And there may also come a time when He tells us to shift.
Wherever we find ourselves, we have to survey the land. What is considered normal here? What does this environment celebrate? What does it tolerate? What is constantly being placed before me? What could I become accustomed to if I remain here long enough without discernment? What must I refuse to adopt even if everyone around me considers it ordinary?
Because customs work both ways. We carry customs into environments, but environments can also introduce customs to us.
That is why being accustomed to something deserves our attention. What initially bothered us can eventually become familiar. What once caused us to pause can become something we no longer notice. If we are not discerning, prolonged exposure can slowly become acceptance, and acceptance can eventually become participation.
This is where Daniel’s “previously” speaks again. Daniel had already determined what his custom would be before the culture demanded something different from him. His surroundings did not get to renegotiate what had already been settled between him and God.
There will be places where God calls us to remain without becoming like what surrounds us. There will be places where He calls us to move. There will be things we must leave at the border, and there will be godly customs we must protect once we cross it.
So perhaps the inspection has two parts: Survey what you’re carrying, and survey where you’re going.
Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal what has become normal in you and what is becoming normal around you. Pay attention to what you are carrying, but also pay attention to what your environment is asking you to pick up.
My Prayer
Lord, reveal to me:
What has become my custom
What I have grown accustomed to that needs to be laid aside
What cannot cross the border into where You are taking me
What in my environment I must remain separate from
What godly customs You desire to establish and strengthen in me
May my devotion to You become so established that changing circumstances and changing environments do not change my response to You. In Jesus’ name, amen.
As you move forward, survey both the baggage and the land. Pay attention to what you’re carrying, what you’re being exposed to, and what you’re becoming accustomed to. Keep what God has established, leave what He has told you to lay aside, and remain discerning enough to recognize when it is time to move.
