Theme of the Week: Setting Family Rhythms
Bible Verse: There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens. Ecclesiastes 3:1
Scripture Reading: Ecclesiastes 3:1-22
My wife’s family lives in Nova Scotia. The property where her grandfather grew up still belongs to the family. It’s down in Lunenburg. The cabin, as we affectionately call it, is one of my favorite places in the world. It sits on a cove and every time we go to visit family, we spend plenty of time at the cabin. I’ve been going there for the past 19 years.
Sometimes our visits to the cabin are to do work, the general maintenance and upkeep of the property. Most of the time, this work is the high and dry sort, but every so often, it’s low, cold, and wet.
When we do have to get in the water, we watch the tides. When is it high, when is it low? We time our trip and our work around low tide; it’s the best time to access things that spend half their life submerged. Working within the rhythms of nature make the tasks much easier (and warmer—the Atlantic, at least the waters around Nova Scotia, never really warm up).
Life can be a lot like the tides. Rhythmic, cyclical. Setting or finding a rhythm for life and for your family can help you navigate the different joys and sorrows that come with life. Rhythm can help you avoid the unnecessary difficulties of trying to force things to fit when it isn’t their time or place. It can even make things easier and more enjoyable when it is time.
To set a rhythm for our families we need to know them, to understand what is and isn’t important to and for them and develop ways to help them grow into the unique people God has created them to be. A healthy rhythm will combine the goals of the family with the value and purposes of the individuals in it. It will help keep the family playing the same song without any one instrument getting too many solos.
There are many rhythms in nature, almost enough to say that God created the world to run on a rhythm. Creating a rhythm for yourself and your family helps fit you into the way God made things work.
Prayer: God of creation, thank you for establishing a rhythm to life and the earth. Help me to find a rhythm for myself and my family that allows each of us to grow into a healthy and happy reflection of you.
Reflection: What are you trying to force that isn’t working right now? Why are you trying to make it work? What is stopping you from changing your tactics to accomplish it a different way? What happens if you stop?
Copyright © 2022 Impactus | Promise Keepers Canada. All rights reserved.
About
