Welcome to the second sermon in this series of four sermons – Developing a Joyous Family – Advice for Christian Parents and Grandparents. Today is “Handling the Daily Routine”.
Every family has a daily routine – more or less. Biblically speaking, there are certain routines that work better than other routines to develop a joyous family. Let’s look at this idea through the lens of Scripture and see what we can find in a story from the day of the Resurrection – for many of us need a Resurrection in our families, our children’s families, our extended families.
That day, two disciples, Cleopas and another man, were walking toward a village called Emmaus, about 6-7 miles from Jerusalem (the Greek tells us that it was 60 stadia. The length of stadia wasn’t fixed – but could have been anywhere between140 to 180 feet, so the distance isn’t precise. Some translations even say, “a Sabbath day’s journey”.
To these men, Jesus was dead. They had been caught up in the great ruckus, the great crowd that shouted “Crucify Him” to Caesar, they had seen Jesus executed. But they had also heard the report of Mary and the women that morning that the rock was rolled back, there were angels who said Jesus was alive, and the report of Peter and John that Jesus was gone from the tomb, but Cleopas and his friend had decided to go home. After the great events of the previous week, they were going back to their daily routine. They were going home where they understood life.
Six or seven miles wasn’t much of a walk to fit young men in those days. You might think of it as a Sunday stroll. A normal days walk when traveling was at least 10, more likely 15 to 20 miles, even 30 miles if you were pushing on. Six or seven miles was a relaxed pace, about 12,000 to 14,000 steps for those who wear pedometers, nothing much to active young men used to walking, not riding in cars, not sitting in front of television sets or computers. Have you ever watched young men outside, men used to playing outside, working on a farm? Six or seven miles is nothing to them.
And so we have the first concept for a good routine. Take it easy. Don’t over-schedule.
Notice what is said about these men:
They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing him.
These men could have pushed it and walked 15 to 20 miles that day, even leaving as late as they did. But they didn’t push it. They took time to enjoy the walk, to talk, to discuss, to ponder the great events of the week. They weren't in a rush - understanding what had happened was more important than making mileage.
In the same way, we harm our joy when we over-schedule our families. We need time to talk and discuss life. We think that learning happens in school, in special classes, during sports practices. But that’s not true. Teaching happens in school, in classes, during sports practices. The learning occurs when we take time to think, to talk, to dream, to imagine, to remember. We learn lying under the shade tree in the summertime, remembering what we were taught about plant biology. We learn sitting on the back porch looking at the clouds, thinking about their shapes. We learn when we put together Lego blocks, when we play with our dolls, when we take time to imagine that the backyard is an exciting land filled with gnomes and hobbits and elves and trolls.
We don’t learn carpentry in shop class. We learn carpentry when we try to build a bench. We don’t learn to sew in home economics, if there still is such a thing. No, we learn to sew when we make doll dresses. We don’t learn computer programming in a 50 minute class surrounded by other students. We learn to program when we sit down on a Saturday evening and try to create a program that draws a smiley face on the computer screen just because it seems like a fun challenge. Every good programmer I know learned almost everything after classroom hours, at home, playing, experimenting on their own projects.
And we also need time to think and talk about God so we can learn about God.
In Deut. 6:6-9, the Bible says: These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates.
God asks us specifically to take time to walk along the road and talk about God-ideas with our children. He talks about sitting at home discussing God's commandments. We are told to write them on the door frames of our homes - perhaps we should tape them to our bathroom mirrors today for our children - and ourselves - to read. For there are more important things than “doing” all the time. God is more important than your daily schedule.
So the first thing is to take time. If your time is controlled by your calendar, schedule time to talk, to dream, to learn into your daily routine in addition to all the “doing”. And you will find the peace of God in that time.
But how can we do this? How can we find time?
We make choices. Band or sports. Dance or volleyball. Pioneer Club or Scouts. Keep life simple. I know the demands – We raised five kids, and had three teenagers at one time. So we simply put them all on the swim team at the same time. We dropped them all off at 4:00 for practice and picked them all up at 6:30 or 7:00. During the other age group’s practice time, they played, they dreamed, they did homework, and they talked to friends. A bit bored, Ian became a student coach. We had sanity at the swim meets because they were always going to the same place at the same time. And we talked about God on the trips.
Simplify and take time to talk about God.
Notice that when Cleopas and his friend took time to talk about Jesus, about God, the Scriptures that Jesus soon joined them. They didn’t realize it at first, but then He showed them things they hadn’t known. …Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.
It's amazing. When people start to talk about Jesus with each other, in families, in groups of friends, Jesus shows up and everyone learns more about Him. We always try to keep a Bible in our car, we kept one in our vans so that when a question came up, we could find the answer in the Bible. Now we carry our phones with Bible apps.
And so, evening came as the two disciples walked with Jesus to Emmaus.
As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going farther. But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them.
Haven’t you noticed that Jesus will always encourage you to go farther in your walk with Him? Jesus is ready to walk farther, to talk longer, to go the extra mile for you, but we want to stop where there is good food and comfortable beds. We want to stop; He is ready to walk further with us today. Yet He does recognize our human weakness and will stop with us when we are weary.
When we establish our daily routines for ourselves and our children and grandchildren, we have to recognize that Jesus is ready to walk with us whenever we are ready. “Doing” is not the goal…walking close to Jesus is the goal, for it is during this walk, this daily exercise, this daily stroll that we learn who He is.
The two disciples and Jesus stopped at an inn and went inside to eat supper.
Simplify and take time to talk about God.
Notice that when Cleopas and his friend took time to talk about Jesus, about God, the Scriptures that Jesus soon joined them. They didn’t realize it at first, but then He showed them things they hadn’t known. …Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.
It's amazing. When people start to talk about Jesus with each other, in families, in groups of friends, Jesus shows up and everyone learns more about Him. We always try to keep a Bible in our car, we kept one in our vans so that when a question came up, we could find the answer in the Bible. Now we carry our phones with Bible apps.
And so, evening came as the two disciples walked with Jesus to Emmaus.
As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going farther. But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them.
Haven’t you noticed that Jesus will always encourage you to go farther in your walk with Him? Jesus is ready to walk farther, to talk longer, to go the extra mile for you, but we want to stop where there is good food and comfortable beds. We want to stop; He is ready to walk further with us today. Yet He does recognize our human weakness and will stop with us when we are weary.
When we establish our daily routines for ourselves and our children and grandchildren, we have to recognize that Jesus is ready to walk with us whenever we are ready. “Doing” is not the goal…walking close to Jesus is the goal, for it is during this walk, this daily exercise, this daily stroll that we learn who He is.
The two disciples and Jesus stopped at an inn and went inside to eat supper.
When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight.
It is during the daily routine of meals that we can learn to recognize Jesus has been with us. This is why Christians pray at meals – to remember that God and Christ are responsible for our very food and drink.
It is during the daily routine of meals that we can learn to recognize Jesus has been with us. This is why Christians pray at meals – to remember that God and Christ are responsible for our very food and drink.
Some people pray a standard prayer at mealtime – it is good to teach the youngest children this routine. But as they grow older, begin to vary the prayer, including a wide range of issues in the mealtime prayer – thanks for the good grades on the test, thanks for the beautiful day, requests to intercede for good health, for a strong performance on the paper that is due tomorrow, thanks for the blessing of seeing the songbird at the window. Let your mealtime prayers be a way of teaching your children and grandchildren to see God’s hand at work in every piece of their lives. And if you do so they will develop a spirit of gratitude to God for everything.
But what about the days of struggle, the inevitable days of conflict or difficulty?
But what about the days of struggle, the inevitable days of conflict or difficulty?
Find the good things to be grateful for, use the prayer time to remind family members of God’s love and their love for each other. Stroll through the prayer on those days when we are most hurried to remind each other that prayer is important, that talking to Jesus at the table is perhaps the most important time in our daily lives. And we, too, will learn to recognize Jesus and God’s influence in the world around us more fully as we do this. When you catch a glimpse of God, there is nothing that will lead Him to tarry around more than your thanks to Him for that brief glimpse.
As you can, consider adding a daily devotion to a mealtime or when you start the car in the morning. It can be as simple as reading a single verse from Proverbs every morning at breakfast or as the car warms up, and then discussing it a bit on the way to school. Grandparents can do this too.
And as you establish this routine with your family, you will experience certain things.
First, there will be resistance. The duration of the resistance, the eye-rolling, the smirks will be directly proportional to the age of your children, with the older ones taking the longest to adapt. So start early – it is easier to build the habit from the beginning.
Next, there will develop a feeling of comfort, a feeling of happiness, a feeling of tradition as the daily routines and ritual truly become routine.
My Grandmother Boley always prayed at family holiday gatherings such as Thanksgiving and Christmas. Then, when she passed on, Saundra and I took over the load, with the first few years being Saundra’s responsibility because I was still not ready. One year, we could not attend Christmas in West Virginia – we were stuck in Georgia because Saundra could not travel due to a difficult pregnancy. My 7-year-old niece Karli insisted that a prayer was needed, and so the family called us so Saundra could say grace for the family over the phone. Do not underestimate the power of family ritual. Regular ritual plants seeds of faith deep.
And then, as you begin to help the children say and lead the prayers, they will begin to pray far more deeply than you ever imagined. They will take what they have learned at table from you and take it into their lives. And they will see Jesus in their lives, announcing to the world that fact because you have modeled that routine, that normal, that view of the world that says “God is present and accounted for, and we are a family that speaks of that to others.”
But why should we change our routine? Why hassle with change?
That evening, Cleopas and the other disciple asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”
They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together and saying, “It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.” Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.
When was the last time your heart burned within you? When was the last time you felt like walking seven miles to tell someone something? When was the last time you were so passionate about ANYTHING that you just had to find your friends to share the good news?
We live in our world which is filled with death and destruction, with drugs and drudgery, with depression and doldrums. We look around and our excitement is kindled by a dozen young men becoming experts at putting a ball through a ring held ten feet in the air. We cheer for men just because they can hit a small ball with a stick farther than most men. We have day-long rituals in stadiums that seat 60,000 people so we can get excited about one group of men carrying a leather ball a hundred yards while another group of men try to stop them. And we get excited when our children learn how to do the same, or something similar.
But why don’t we get just as excited that the Creator of the Universe sent part of Himself to earth to teach us, to walk with us, to die in our place so we could live forever? Why don’t we get excited? Cleopas and his companion had just walked seven miles, sat down to eat, and then, without bothering to eat, walked back the seven miles to Jerusalem so they could tell their friends that Jesus was alive and they had seen Him!
Why don’t we get excited?
Has it become routine?
Has it become normal in your life?
Has it become an everyday part of your life, like brushing your teeth in the morning, like having toast for breakfast, like taking a shower, and, oh yes, Jesus rose from the dead to save me from eternal separation from God?
Has the fact that God’s Son died on the cross to save you from hell fire and eternal torment become ho-hum to you?
Think for a moment of that day, that terrible night and day when Jesus did not follow his normal routine, when life did not go the way it ordinarily did, when the people of Jerusalem told their rulers that they wanted Jesus to be crucified, crucified, crucified upon a rough wooden cross.
Think for moment of how the whip felt across his naked back, a whip in which were embedded nails and shards of glass and sharp stones. Thing of the feeling as that whip was jerked across his back, ripping the skin loose. Think that this is what you might have one day felt in Hell if He hadn’t stood up in your place.
Think for a moment of him carrying that 150 pound cross a mile or more, through the streets on his bleeding shoulder. Think of the pain on his back, the sting on the shoulders, the flies buzzing around the bleeding back.
Then feel the pain He felt as those heavy spikes were driven into his wrists and his ankles. Think of the pain as those spikes took up his entire weight as the cross was raised to the vertical and think of the sudden intense pain as the cross dropped three feet into the hole in the ground.
And now there is the embarrassment as his clothes were removed, as he hung there on that cross naked and bleeding, the hot sun beating down upon him, his hands unable to remove the flies that went for the blood running down his back and sides. And now as he is standing there, hunched, one ankle turned in front of the other and a single long spike through them, his calves begin to cramp from the position and the dehydration. You are beginning to appreciate what he did to save us from a worse fate in Hell.
And then, there is that suffocating feeling that comes from not being able to life himself up to catch his breath. He calls to his friend John and to his mother Mary and tells John to take care of Mary. And then he calls out in a loud voice and dies. This is what He did for you and for me that terrible Friday in Jerusalem. Yet His suffering on the cross is nothing compared to what awaits people in Hell, for as much as Jesus suffered, He only suffered one day. The souls in Hell are there for eternity.
But then, because the Father loved Him so much – and us – that Sunday the world changed as Jesus came back to life, saw the women at the tomb, and walked – He did not hobble, he did not struggle, he walked along the road and caught up to Cleopas and his friend and lectured them about how the Messiah had to suffer and then he broke bread with them and they knew who He was.
And because of this, the two of them walked and ran and skipped and jumped and raced each other back to Jerusalem to tell the others that they had seen Him and they announced that Peter had also seen Him and then He was there among them, and He is here among us now, His Holy Spirit present and there is joy in our lives and we shall live forever because of what He did for us!
And that is why we should change our daily routine to teach our children and give them time to learn about what Jesus did, bringing joy to them and to us because we shall live eternally with Him and the Father!
Praise be to God! Give thanks to God!
As you can, consider adding a daily devotion to a mealtime or when you start the car in the morning. It can be as simple as reading a single verse from Proverbs every morning at breakfast or as the car warms up, and then discussing it a bit on the way to school. Grandparents can do this too.
And as you establish this routine with your family, you will experience certain things.
First, there will be resistance. The duration of the resistance, the eye-rolling, the smirks will be directly proportional to the age of your children, with the older ones taking the longest to adapt. So start early – it is easier to build the habit from the beginning.
Next, there will develop a feeling of comfort, a feeling of happiness, a feeling of tradition as the daily routines and ritual truly become routine.
My Grandmother Boley always prayed at family holiday gatherings such as Thanksgiving and Christmas. Then, when she passed on, Saundra and I took over the load, with the first few years being Saundra’s responsibility because I was still not ready. One year, we could not attend Christmas in West Virginia – we were stuck in Georgia because Saundra could not travel due to a difficult pregnancy. My 7-year-old niece Karli insisted that a prayer was needed, and so the family called us so Saundra could say grace for the family over the phone. Do not underestimate the power of family ritual. Regular ritual plants seeds of faith deep.
And then, as you begin to help the children say and lead the prayers, they will begin to pray far more deeply than you ever imagined. They will take what they have learned at table from you and take it into their lives. And they will see Jesus in their lives, announcing to the world that fact because you have modeled that routine, that normal, that view of the world that says “God is present and accounted for, and we are a family that speaks of that to others.”
But why should we change our routine? Why hassle with change?
That evening, Cleopas and the other disciple asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”
They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together and saying, “It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.” Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.
When was the last time your heart burned within you? When was the last time you felt like walking seven miles to tell someone something? When was the last time you were so passionate about ANYTHING that you just had to find your friends to share the good news?
We live in our world which is filled with death and destruction, with drugs and drudgery, with depression and doldrums. We look around and our excitement is kindled by a dozen young men becoming experts at putting a ball through a ring held ten feet in the air. We cheer for men just because they can hit a small ball with a stick farther than most men. We have day-long rituals in stadiums that seat 60,000 people so we can get excited about one group of men carrying a leather ball a hundred yards while another group of men try to stop them. And we get excited when our children learn how to do the same, or something similar.
But why don’t we get just as excited that the Creator of the Universe sent part of Himself to earth to teach us, to walk with us, to die in our place so we could live forever? Why don’t we get excited? Cleopas and his companion had just walked seven miles, sat down to eat, and then, without bothering to eat, walked back the seven miles to Jerusalem so they could tell their friends that Jesus was alive and they had seen Him!
Why don’t we get excited?
Has it become routine?
Has it become normal in your life?
Has it become an everyday part of your life, like brushing your teeth in the morning, like having toast for breakfast, like taking a shower, and, oh yes, Jesus rose from the dead to save me from eternal separation from God?
Has the fact that God’s Son died on the cross to save you from hell fire and eternal torment become ho-hum to you?
Think for a moment of that day, that terrible night and day when Jesus did not follow his normal routine, when life did not go the way it ordinarily did, when the people of Jerusalem told their rulers that they wanted Jesus to be crucified, crucified, crucified upon a rough wooden cross.
Think for moment of how the whip felt across his naked back, a whip in which were embedded nails and shards of glass and sharp stones. Thing of the feeling as that whip was jerked across his back, ripping the skin loose. Think that this is what you might have one day felt in Hell if He hadn’t stood up in your place.
Think for a moment of him carrying that 150 pound cross a mile or more, through the streets on his bleeding shoulder. Think of the pain on his back, the sting on the shoulders, the flies buzzing around the bleeding back.
Then feel the pain He felt as those heavy spikes were driven into his wrists and his ankles. Think of the pain as those spikes took up his entire weight as the cross was raised to the vertical and think of the sudden intense pain as the cross dropped three feet into the hole in the ground.
And now there is the embarrassment as his clothes were removed, as he hung there on that cross naked and bleeding, the hot sun beating down upon him, his hands unable to remove the flies that went for the blood running down his back and sides. And now as he is standing there, hunched, one ankle turned in front of the other and a single long spike through them, his calves begin to cramp from the position and the dehydration. You are beginning to appreciate what he did to save us from a worse fate in Hell.
And then, there is that suffocating feeling that comes from not being able to life himself up to catch his breath. He calls to his friend John and to his mother Mary and tells John to take care of Mary. And then he calls out in a loud voice and dies. This is what He did for you and for me that terrible Friday in Jerusalem. Yet His suffering on the cross is nothing compared to what awaits people in Hell, for as much as Jesus suffered, He only suffered one day. The souls in Hell are there for eternity.
But then, because the Father loved Him so much – and us – that Sunday the world changed as Jesus came back to life, saw the women at the tomb, and walked – He did not hobble, he did not struggle, he walked along the road and caught up to Cleopas and his friend and lectured them about how the Messiah had to suffer and then he broke bread with them and they knew who He was.
And because of this, the two of them walked and ran and skipped and jumped and raced each other back to Jerusalem to tell the others that they had seen Him and they announced that Peter had also seen Him and then He was there among them, and He is here among us now, His Holy Spirit present and there is joy in our lives and we shall live forever because of what He did for us!
And that is why we should change our daily routine to teach our children and give them time to learn about what Jesus did, bringing joy to them and to us because we shall live eternally with Him and the Father!
Praise be to God! Give thanks to God!
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