routines

This year, I’m using a reading plan developed by my church to help our members with disciplined reading and overall knowledge of what God has done. I’m eager to see what new understanding and opportunities come from  partnering with my church in  my annual Bible-reading journey. 

As we get started, I read the first couple chapters of Genesis in the context of going back to work. I worked half-days last week, and had a couple paid holidays mixed in, so I’ve had a nice break, but tomorrow it ends.

This year is like many recent years: I start with mixed feelings. Some things I meant to do last year I intend to tackle with renewed discipline. I think maybe I can get them this year because there are a couple of things (I guess you could call the resolutions, but I usually don’t) that I did in 2015, for the whole year. But I wonder if I can sustain those. 

So my New Year’s thoughts tend to center around work and productivity. The fun of the holidays is over and it’s time to knuckle down. 

In that context, the familiar creation account that begins Genesis was inspiring, because in it I noticed how God approached work. God had his routine – each day he did a day’s worth of work, and the record of each day ends like this: “There was evening, and there was morning.” 

And then, to cap it all off, that first week ended like this: (Genesis 1:31-2:3) “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.”

God’s work so far surpasses mine that comparisons don’t seem relevant, but it seems to me that He could have made the world any way he wanted to, and he did it this way. It makes me thing that as his image-bearer, I can approach my own work the same way. I can tackle each day as it comes to me, and at the end the sun will go down, and I can take satisfaction in what I’ve accomplished. Tomorrow will be a new day. And at the end of the week will be my day of rest. In that way, I can do what I need to do, and live faithfully as I do it.

With this idea in mind, I was especially struck by one of my favorite passages, Psalm 1:1-3, which says, 

“Blessed is the one

who does not walk in step with the wicked

or stand in the way that sinners take

or sit in the company of mockers,

but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,

and who meditates on his law day and night.

That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,

which yields its fruit in season

and whose leaf does not wither—

whatever they do prospers.” 

It seems to me that these two passages, describing as they do a routine of work and a way of living that delights in obedience, set in front of me the best resolutions I could have.