I love to sing and dance (just don’t tell the legalistic Christians who think dancing is from Satan). And even those who aren’t familiar with the “ins and outs” of music and dancing recognize someone who lacks rhythm. The guy who can’t carry a tune in a bucket sticks out like a sore thumb.
Or the guy on the dance floor whose moves look like a withering flower. You know the guy. His effort is there. His focus is there. But his rhythm is not there. It hurts to watch.
When rhythm is missing, everyone notices. It’s painfully obvious.
But let’s flip the script. Just like we recognize someone without rhythm, we also recognize someone with it. Think about the best musicians and dancers. We are drawn to them. Their rhythm is infectious.
What makes someone with great rhythm so fascinating? There is a unique combination of skill, precision and effortlessness. A great dancer has the ability to move in such a way that it almost appears like they aren’t trying.
The same is true for a life of rhythm. It is not easy to master. But once you discover a rhythm for your life, it will appear to others like this life thing is a piece of cake … even though it’s not. The cares and worries of the world will no longer be your cares. Your pace won’t match the frantic, hurried pace of the world.
And the world will be drawn to your life. In the process, the world will be drawn to God.
So, what does a life of rhythm look like? I want to propose eight very important steps to creating a life of rhythm. Here they are.
1.) Give our day back to God. He owns it anyway.
If we desire to live in rhythm we must realize who owns the day. And it’s not us. We could learn a lesson from our ancestors, the Hebrews. They realized God controlled the world, so their focus was totally on him. The Hebrews never saw the world as something to be fixed.
Where would the Hebrews get such an idea? Genesis 1.
God called the light “day” and the darkness “night.” And evening passed and morning came, marking the first day. Genesis 1:5
In God’s eyes, the day starts in the evening. Evening passes before morning. The Jews still look at time this way. The Jewish Sabbath doesn’t start at midnight on Saturday. It starts at sunset on Friday.
What in the world does this mean for us? While we are fast asleep, God is already orchestrating the events of our day. He gets a 12-hour jump start on us. Too often, we wake up, waste no time kicking it into fifth gear, and never consider the work God is already doing in us and around us long before our feet hit the floor.
What if we started every day by asking God how we can partner with him instead of how he can partner with us?
QUESTION: How can you partner in the work God is already doing today?
2.) Look for opportunities.
Not every second is created equal. Look for opportunities. Take advantage of them. Don’t allow your day’s tasks to cripple God’s work. There are opportunities all around us. We must open our eyes. And we must create space. Rhythm helps us do this by not allowing tasks to enslave us.
In Ephesians 5:15-16, Paul tells the Ephesians to make the best use of the “time.” The Greek word is kairos. Paul is not telling the Ephesians to make the best use of their hours. He is telling them to make the best use of their opportunities.
