Central Abbotsford

For those of us who are teachers, students, or parents/caregivers of one or the other, this week marks the beginning of another school year. That truth may elicit despair in you, it may elicit excitement, it may even elicit relief! – but it remains the truth. 

Summer break, even for those households that are not directly governed by the school calendar, tends to represent a break from the regular rhythms of life. Abundant long weekends and vacation weeks allow for camping and road trips, grandparents, aunts, and uncles are besieged with requests for sleepovers to give weary parents a degree of respite (or to reinforce the important bonds of extended family), and daylight that stretches past 8 or even 9 o’clock mean that outdoor activities can persist long after a 5:00 card gets punched.

Most of these indulgences get curtailed when we get to fall. An October Thanksgiving means that we might luck out and get a nice crisp long weekend, but it is far from prime tent weather. School and church schedules restrict the opportunity for free-wheeling planning. Even the tilt of the earth works against us (the sun will set at 7:40 when we gather this Saturday. By the last gathering of the month, this will be down to 6:55pm, just as most of us are starting dessert!). 

In more direct words, the fun of summer is done, and the routine of the rest of the year is here.

However (and at the risk of being accused of being a boring old man), allow me to speak a few words in praise of routine. 

God has built rhythms and routines of varying lengths into His creation; indeed, the Creation itself demonstrates this rhythm. On the first three days, He created the physical contours of the universe, and on the second set of three days, He created the bodies and beings to occupy those spaces, all leading to the day of rest. He then gave this Sabbath rest to His people as a commandment to be obeyed as a rhythm and routine. This cyclical pattern of rest was also applied to land (Leviticus 25:4) and economics (Leviticus 25:10).

These patterns are not restricted to humans; the skies and seasons demonstrate them as well. After the Flood had receded, God declared “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease” (Genesis 8:22). The rotation of the Earth on its own axis, and its revolution around the Sun, give the evidence of this element of God’s plan for His creation. Therefore, even the lack of routine that summer affords finds itself part of an even longer cycle of routine itself.

So, for those of you who find a return to routine to be a welcome comfort, like the satisfaction of slipping on a perfectly-fit pair of shoes, rejoice in the reality that God has made you this way – eager to enjoy the “normal” life (for as long as it lasts). And for those who meet this season with something of a lament, I pray that He uses this time for revealing more of Him and His character to all of His people, but especially those who might be struggling. Much growth in Christ happens when an attribute of God’s character rubs against the grain of something in ours. As we learned this summer in our series in Revelation, God wins! And it is a victory for Him when we are conformed to His will for us; our sanctification and growth into the image of His Son. He can and does use all of the tools at His disposal to accomplish this – even the rhythm of back to school!