Routine as an Idol
January 31, 2024
Faith
January 31, 2024
Faith
I love routine, my son loves routine, and my wife loves routine. It’s what makes our days well oiled, ensuring with decent certainty that our days will go just as we expect. All in all, inside the routine our family has a smooth operation. I’m usually up by 4:00 AM, which is my personal time with God where I pray, give thanks, read His Word, and write blogs to Glorify Him. We build our relationship together and it sets my day off on the right track.
For my son, his routine includes waking up around 6:00 AM, coming downstairs to scour the freezer or fridge for something sweet or to make himself a protein shake. Once sustenance is in hand, he goes upstairs to take a bath where he settles into the tub with his comic book. 5 to 45 minutes later he pops out, gets dressed and finalizes any last-minute homework that didn’t get done the night before. When the big and small hand of the clock align to 7:40 we pack ourselves in the car and I drive him to school.
For my wife, her routine is similar, waking up around 6:00 AM, coming downstairs for coffee, we sit together for a while, catch up with one another then I make my way to the shower, and she helps our son finish any remaining homework and attempts to get him to eat something more than a protein shake or popsicle. Once we are off to school and work, she’s either off on a walk, engulfed in a YouTube Bible Study, or sitting down to write in her historical non-fiction book about her father.
A few weeks ago, I woke up as expected around 4:00 AM. I came downstairs and began my routine. I took out my Bible and began reading, twenty-five minutes later I took out my prayer journal and began writing His morning praise, glorifying God in prayer. From there I had planned on finishing a blog, but instead my wife comes downstairs. She’s early, over an hour early. Suddenly, my routine is waylaid, and I’m filled with resentment. Off kilter, I closed the lid of my laptop and begrudgingly gave her my full attention. Inside our routines we find comfort in knowing the outcomes, there is predictability built into them. But what happens when we’ve built expectations into our routines?
Before long you find yourself in a hot potato game of judgment and expectation, back and forth it goes. This is commonplace in relationships and marriages, dating all the way back to Adam and Eve. However, placing expectations on time yields a different outcome. My idol was just that, time alone, and being the leader of a family albeit small, and running a company, left precious little time to grow His Spirt in me. I claimed the 4:00 – 6:00 AM time as my own; not His.
Before coming to this Revelation, I would become angry and resentful, and my day would have a tragic start. This time became sacred, expected, and religious, which became a higher priority than time with my family. It became less and less about the intention of spending time with God and more and more about what it did for me. It would be hard for me to find an idol greater than time. Wrapping expectations around time, more specifically, alone time has always led to disappointment. In the time before marriage and children, alone time was a less valuable commodity, in fact I sought to have as little alone time as possible. After marriage, children and starting two companies, alone time has become cherished.
As we progress in spiritual maturity, when discernment gains strength and we begin to see our lives from another point of view, we must change. There is no stopping it, what is seen can’t be unseen. Free will has a different meaning now. I can’t love my routine more than I love the fruit of the Spirit. It’s incongruent. In the past, before I even knew I was maligned, I still woke up at 4AM and had a very similar routine, it just didn’t involve God. If either my wife or son came down early and interrupted this time my day would be off kilter. After finding God my routines changed but the outcome of interruption was the same.
The difference became awareness; my ability to see selfish behavior. God showed me that my time with Him isn’t about my own alone time. He showed me how my routine became an idol, something I woke up early each morning for. Yes, it includes worship to Him, but it also includes expectation and judgement to those around me, mainly my family. Once I acknowledged that worship time was ‘me’ time, it became clear that my routine had become an idol.
I often forget that time is a human component, that God lives outside of space and time. God created time and is the arbiter of our time here on Earth. There is no such thing as ‘me’ time, we are on His time and His clock and, we can’t hold expectations around His time. How can I Glorify Him when I’m stuck in resentment with my wife? Glorifying Him doesn’t look like anger, rather love, the deepest love we’ve ever known. Love and acceptance for my wife and son, or anyone that interrupts a routine.
The Lord blesses us with His Light, why would we put a shade over that? It’s His greatest gift to us. He guides me when I write; I follow His lead. Whether I’m writing at 4 AM or 4 PM, as I am now and as I was earlier, He is the quill, ink, and paper, my hands are His vessel. The fruit is light, and as my wife reads this, He is extinguishing the darkness that overcomes my flesh when the self tries to rise.
The flesh will always try to resurrect the self; therefore, we must live by His Spirit in us, and He will sanctify. Any routine that disconnects you from His Spirit, even if the routine is to honor His Glory, is an idol. Aware of our sin we repent.
Confessing, in my case to my wife or son, shines His Light on sin and it becomes vanquished and forgiven, on the spot, and in real time. That is the true power and glory of God. He called us to be righteous in all that we do, that includes our own flesh. If we are unwilling to confess and repent, we aren’t righteous, but self-righteous and living in sin. Whether time, the gym, yoga, running or martial arts, if the routine disconnects His hierarchy of God, family, others, self and rearranges to self-first you’ve found yourself worshiping an idol. The litmus test? Anger upon disruption.
Shine His Light on it; unprovoked. Get ahead of the disconnection before the anger sparks, and resentment grows. His Spirit in you already knows which routines have become an idol, it’s impossible to read this without a giant spotlight shining on it. Accept it, confess now, this is the moment where life happens, not in the future when a routine is waylaid, and your idol worship interrupted. Through Him you will be forgiven, and the idol turned to dust
