I’ve recently been thinking a lot about patterns in my life.  Part of this comes from the realization that I really like me better when I’m regularly attending my 4pm Crossfit Class and living into better patterns.  The days I miss my workout because of busyness or traveling I feel down.  Another reason is that I’m in the midst of some big transitions and I’m spending a lot of time thinking about our new life and how all the pieces will fit together.

A “rut” as I define it is something that you regularly do that has a negative consequence.  No one like to drive, ski, bike or walk in ruts. It’s not fun, safe or comfortable. Ruts can come in all forms.  Maybe it’s an addiction to something unhealthy. A pattern of coming home and mixing a cocktail (or 3) or even simply being a overworker, not sleeping enough or getting in the same argumentative patterns with your spouse or kids.  The thing about ruts is they continually get deeper and harder to get out of.

I’m defining “patterns” as something opposite of a rut. As I am looking at this I see patterns as being positive things.  Patterns can help you make good choices. You might want to establish a pattern of coming home and playing with your kids,  helping with homework, regularly making breakfast for the family, having a healthy date night with your spouse, creating good sleep habits, working out regularly.  What I like about patterns is that they can change easier than ruts.  If life changes or transitions you can easier change patterns because in general they can be fluid.

So my challenge this week is simple.  Take a look at your life and evaluate it based on “ruts” and “patterns.”  Ask the question: “What things are you doing that are pretty easily defined as a rut?”  What do you need to do to break free of the negative? The second question is: “What better patterns can you establish this week that will give you life, your family life and your marriage life?”

Again I’m fully aware that everything I write applies to me. I’m working hard this spring on redefining myself and moving into healthy decisions for all parts of my life.  As a funny/sad side note this week I decided to get more sleep. So I’m committed to going to bed at 10pm and getting up at 7am.   9 hours of sleep sounds like a great thing. Unfortunately the last two nights I’ve laid in bed for at least an hour and half before sleeping.  Sometimes patterns are hard to establish.

Last night we walked over to our local park after dinner. The boys and I threw a baseball around and my wife and daughter walked the dog around and played on the playground. After a while we all sort of congregated over by the area where we feed the ducks.  It’s a beautiful spot and the weather was just about perfect. We started talking about the future a bit and our new lives in Washington.  It just felt like the right place and time to go into some spontaneous family prayer time.

So I asked the kids if they would pray for our upcoming move and our new house that we don’t have figured out yet.  Of course there was a bit of a turmoil about the order we’d pray in and we ended up going oldest to youngest kid (much to my daughters happiness) but then we prayed.

It was a great moment for us.  All three kids prayed with wisdom, discernment and even care for our family.  Danielle and I closed the time of prayer and we just sat there for a while.

So here’s my challenge to you as a dad.  I guess that more often than not you probably don’t lead into these types of prayer times.  I’m a pastor and I don’t do this spontaneous thing very often. But it was right and we clearly needed that time as a family.  My encouragement to you is to do it this week.

I realize this post is a few days late but I’m going to still title it as I did because it keeps the continuity of the series.

Today I’m going to simply share a thought that I was given in a counseling session this week.  If you missed that we are heading into a relationship with a counselor please read this post.  Most of you know that we are embarking on a pretty major change in our lives and moving across the country. With that move comes some great stress. But, even   when stress is great it still causes anxiety and other issues. We’re trying to get ahead of that and make sure we have someone to talk to in the process.

As we were talking our therapist said that she wanted me to focus on one thing this week and that was this idea of “People before Things.”   Where this came from was what I would call my need for “order” and “patterns” in my life and especially as I parent.  But she correctly pointed out that sometimes that need for structure affects everyone around me and not in a good way.

So on a practical level what does “People before Things” mean to me this week. 

1. It means I worry less about the state of the kitchen after I make a meal than I do the people eating it.

2. It means I forget about time and my obsession with being early everywhere and more about how I encourage and love my family in the mornings.

3. It means I release myself from feeling pressure to take care of things when I could be spending quality time with people.

4. It means I begin creating patterns and systems that free me from guilt when I don’t accomplish what I feel I need to.

5. It means I wrestle more with my kids on a pile of clean laundry instead of needing to put it all away first.

6. It means we no longer live with the belief that our family of 5 will be held to unrealistic expectations.

7. It means that I will fight hard to chill, relax and release.

8. It means that there is nothing more important than the people in my life.

I realize that some of you who read this and don’t know me well might think I’ve got major issues.  Probably would be helpful at some point to have Danielle write a guest post saying I’m not really that bad. I’m just at a stage in my life where I feel a need and even some pressure to make sure that I am creating the best possible situation in my family for us all to thrive. The scary reality is that we only have 12 more years of our kids in the house.  I want them to be able to look back at their growing up years and have amazing memories of how much their parents loved them, each other and Jesus.  Even more scary is my oldest is 11 so we possibly only have 6 more years with him.

I write these weekly posts just to encourage dads to walk on this journey with me. I’m far from perfect and don’t expect you to be perfect either. But, as we journey on this road together I hope we can encourage each other to grow as we partner with our wives, follow Jesus and love our kids.

A couple weeks ago I wrote a blog post about “Peace” and specifically I talked about the need to help create peace during that morning rhythm for my family.  I can say that I feel like it’s going better for us.

I was thinking about the same morning routine yesterday and was wondering about how closely related Structure and Control are. For example I like our mornings to have a lot of structure. It’s just the way I operate. I know that we need to walk about the door at 7:40am in order to do carpool the easiest and not get stuck in a long line up of cars. So I back everything up in the morning all the way to me getting out of bed with never hitting the snooze button at 7am.

That structure is good for me because I value and need it. It’s often good for our family too because we need to know what we are doing.   But what if I have kids and a wife that are not that structured and who have the great ability to “flow” with the morning and make changes as needed.  Specifically,  what if my wife who is more “in tune” with the emotional needs of our kids recognizes that one of them might need a little extra sensitivity  in the mornings? And what if that awareness says we are going to probably not get in the car for an extra 5 minutes?

Well unfortunately when I don’t allow for those changes to happen in a fluid and healthy way then I fall into the world of control.  If the structure and schedule becomes more important than the people then I am teetering on the brink of it being unhealthy.

So just another quick dad thought and challenge.  Take the next couple of days and think about routines and patterns you have.  Think about how they are helpful and conversely when they are not.  Ask yourself the question if this is a situation where structure and patterns are good at what point do they become unhealthy.

As usually too know that I’m praying for dads today. I think that generally a lot of us are doing great things and care deeply about our families.  I write these posts just to encourage us to grow. I appreciate all the feedback and responses I get as I walk this journey with you.