We all have rhythm. No, not the ability to play drums or keep a beat even, but we all have a rhythm. Rhythm is all around us and it’s part of our day to day lives in so many places that we often overlook it. I mean right now, you’re probably reading this with some form of rhythm to your pace. Your heart is even beating to a rhythm (I hope it is!).
Rhythm is all around us as well. There’s rhythm in the sunrise and sunset. There is rhythm in the way the feet hit the treadmill in the gym. There’s rhythm to your breathing. Seasons follow a rhythmic pattern. Everything about life is based off of a healthy rhythm.
As we kick off a new year together here on the blog, I wanted to spend a few minutes discussing healthy rhythms. I really think rhythms are the biggest struggle many of us have in life. Whether you’re struggling with weight or finance management, relationships or body image, productivity or worship attendance they all revolve around rhythm. And there’s one rhythm that sets them all up properly.
If you look at the world around you and especially at the way the world was formed. As a follower of Jesus, I believe that God formed all of this in the way it describes in Genesis 1. That part of the Bible lays out what we call the 7 days of creation. In those days of creation, God sets a whole series of rhythms or patterns for the world. From tides to sunrise/sunset to seasons to even the way he speaks and things happen, it all follows a rhythm. Nothing was made in creation that didn’t involve God speaking. Even before he created man, God said let us make man in our image. There was a rhythm to how it all happened.
But the problem is, we live in a world of solo drummers. We don’t like to march to someone else’s drumbeat. We like to be creative and come up with our own rhythms. I’m a huge advocate for consistency and patterns.
Heck look around the world right now as people are crying for a return to normal. They’re not looking for normal! They’re looking for rhythm. Our rhythm of life was disrupted nearly 2 years ago and we haven’t found a sustainable rhythm yet. What we call normal is really a comfortable and sustainable pace with which we can walk, talk and live our lives. We haven’t had that for a while now and we long to have it back again.
But it goes a little deeper than just waking and sleeping at the same time everyday, which is of tremendous benefit in and of itself! There is a deeper rhythm that must be established to really have things moving in the right direction and to establish a sustainable pace for productivity, health, wellness, relationships and all aspects of life to truly flourish.
Below is a message I gave to kick off the New Year at Living Word Galena. In this message I’ll dig a little into the idea of the rhythms around us and how they can help us stay in rhythm. I’ll also give a couple of tools we have here to help keep us in rhythm.