Establishing Life-Giving Rhythms and Practices This Year

By the Rev. Kristen Yates (modified from its original post in The Vine and the Way)

Christians by nature are a profoundly rhythmic people.  So were their Jewish ancestors.  

Perhaps, it is just because nature itself is rhythmic. When God established the heavens and earth, He imbedded rhythms into the created order. All throughout creation, we find patterns of productivity and rest.   Plants, animals, fungi, and even bacteria have circadian rhythms, biological processes that display an oscillation of activity over a 24-hour period. 

If we look further outward, we find that the earth itself experiences rhythms due to its rotations around its bent axis and its rotation around the sun, resulting in periods of day and night and seasons throughout the year. Depending on the time of day and the season of the year, organisms will go between more productive times and more quiet times.

So it is not surprising that like the Creation itself, Christians, find themselves living into life-giving rhythms of productivity and Sabbath, as well as rhythms of prayer and work; joy and lament; feasting and fasting; celebrating and abstaining; community and solitude; and activism and stillness.

For centuries, Christians and their Jewish forbearers, have structured their weeks in response to God’s call to be co-creators with Him for six days of week and on the seventh day to rest and worship and delight in Him.

They have also structured their days so as to integrate regular prayer into their work, eating, rest, and play.

Since the earliest times, Christians have also structured their years around feast days and celebrations – days throughout the year that help them regularly walk through the life and death of Jesus Christ and the early days of the Church as the Good News of Jesus began to spread.

 In addition to all this, Christians have naturally found themselves ebbing and flowing into different seasons of the spiritual life as they have journeyed through the ups and downs of life.  As such, they have learned to engage different rhythms and practices of discipleship in each season.

Perhaps, this idea of having rhythms in one’s walk with Jesus is a new concept to you.  Or perhaps you are familiar with it, but it has become stale or rote.  One way or the other, in this new year, we would love to introduce you to the wonderful practice of establishing life-giving rhythms in your spiritual life and to help you establish such rhythms.

Next week, I’ll write about practicing the Seasons in the Christian Calendar. The following week, I’ll talk about the practice of the Daily Office, and the following week after that, I’ll write about creating a personal Rule of Life (not to worry - this is not about legalisms, but establishing life-giving rhythms for living into what we say we value most.)

May you live into Godly and Life-Giving Rhythms in 2020!