Routine –

Everyone seems to have it, it does not matter if you have a planned routine or not.  What we do in life becomes a routine.  This really became evident to me this morning when I woke up late.  See when you have children you are use to not setting the alarm because more likely than not the kids are up at some crazy hour in the morning.  But yesterday morning they slept in until 8:00am.  This threw my routine off.  I had to rush to get ready for work then I arrived at the office about 20 minutes later than I normally do.  In doing so I missed three phone calls.  But that’s not the biggest problem for me right now.

I don’t want to get into a bad routine which is something most pastors fall into easily.  I don’t want to put my ministry and my family above my personal needs.  I don’t want to have poor personal care habits which I have seen first hand over and over again….I also had terrible personal care habits while on internship.  I want to be able to get up in the morning and go to the gym (once we find one to join) and I want to work out and then have a nice breakfast and work reasonable hours.  I want to be able to recognize when I am at the church too long and I need to go home.  I want this church to be “daddy’s church” for my children instead of “daddy’s home” which it was on internship.

It is easy to get into a bad routine — to get caught up in the work day and stop at McDonalds for lunch instead of eating the healthy lunch that is packed.  It is easy to say that tomorrow I am going to start going to the gym instead of doing it NOW. It is easy to stay alittle later at the church to finish Sunday’s sermon instead of going home to put the kids to bed……It is harder to START a good routine but once it is started it will make a world of difference.