Yesterday, as we always do, Diane and I sat down for happy hour. First discussion: “What day is this?” Diane said, “Tuesday.” “No, I think it’s Wednesday.” “Huh?” “Well, Monday I was going to go to the Seminary but didn’t. I went Tuesday and that was yesterday. So, today must be Wednesday.”
“Well,” she asked, “what day did I go to Home Depot and buy a stove?” “A stove? It was supposed to be a clothes dryer!” (Our 15-year-old dryer gave up the ghost). “Oh, yeah. I hope that’s what they deliver, not another stove.” “That was yesterday; I remember you texted me at the Sem.” So, we established that yesterday was Wednesday. Is there any nurse out there who can come and write on our whiteboard, “Dale and Diane, today is Thursday”?
A month into retirement, we’re struggling to get into a routine. Routine organizes life. It’s part of God’s creation. “And there was evening and there was morning, the first day,” and so on (Genesis 1:5). “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease” (Genesis 8:22). “Six days you shall labor and do all your work” – I know, I can hear you: “I’m so busy in retirement, I don’t know when I found time to go to work” – “but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God” (Exodus 20:9). It doesn’t help our new routine that there’s no get-into-the-car-and-go to church, which used to be a marker each week. “The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty” (Psalm 90:10).
Routine isn’t the goal; it’s the means to a goal. “You observe days and months and seasons and years! I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain” (Galatians 4:10). The goal is living in the freedom of the Gospel. If your routine is largely determined by work and the demands of children, your goal is to see the busyness as your opportunity to share God’s love and service with others. When busyness has slowed down, as it has for Diane and me, the goal is what Paul said, “now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God” (Galatians 4:9). “Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12).
“Justa is coming tomorrow,” said Diane. “I thought she’s coming on Friday.” “What day is today?”
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