Do you know there’s a difference between a rule and a rhythm? People with spiritual disciplines talk about having a rhythm of life and they talk about having a rule of life. And I think confusing them is one of the main reasons people give up on spiritual practices. A rule is what they often call it.

But a rule is something for me that I break. There’s a rule set. I will be still every morning at 6:00 a.m. And then life happens and you miss the morning.

And you’ve broken the rule. And something inside me anyway feels that this is evidence that I’m not disciplined enough and this isn’t really for me and I’m not that kind of person who can do this consistently and I give up. And I don’t know if you are, but I don’t want that to be the case. A rhythm is different.

I even called mine when I had to do this as an assignment one time the river, the river of life. A rhythm is different. A rhythm is something you return to. It expects interruption.

It doesn’t end when you miss a day. It just waits for you to come back. No judgment. No keeping a tally of how many times you’ve done it this week and how many times you haven’t.

That distinction is not just semantic. It changes how you relate to the practice when life gets in the way. And life is going to get in the way. That’s not being pessimistic.

That’s just how life is. One thing I love about looking at Jesus’s life is that stillness wasn’t something he added on top of everything else. It was woven into the very fabric of how he lived life. He often withdrew to quiet places.

He went up on a mountain to be alone. Scripture will say he got up very early before others so that he could pray. It wasn’t a formula. It wasn’t I will be still every day from 6:00 to 7:00.

It was just a pattern, a way of returning, a way of staying tethered to the Lord. That’s the goal. It’s not a schedule you maintain. It’s a tether you just keep coming back to.

Here’s what I’ve learned about myself. If I say I’m going to be more intentional about stillness, nothing happens. But if I give myself something specific like I want so badly to be in my chair in my little office every morning. And as I enter that space, I want to light my candle with no words.

The Lord knows as I light that candle, it means that I’m grateful that he came into the dark world and brought the light. And I’m focusing on him without even words. And I want to set my timer for five minutes to just be quiet. And every now and then I add a minute.

This morning I had eight minutes. And I do this all before I open my phone most of the time. Sometimes I open it. It’s not good, but it will happen.

And it’s very difficult, but you can do it. And it will set the tone for your day. When we say we’ll try to do something, that almost sets us up to fail. I hate it when I call a doctor’s office and they’ll say, “I’ll try to connect you.” I know right then I’m not going to get an answer.

And I don’t. I get the machine. So don’t say you’re going to try to do something. What you want to do is you want to do something and you make it simple and you make it doable.

One more thing you need to do before you go design your rhythm. You need to understand life is going to interrupt it. You’ll have a week where everything falls apart or you’ll have a season where you can barely hold it together and the practice will get set down, but you can always pick it up. You know, I know people who if they’re reading, you know, they’ll do a a Bible reading program and they’re supposed to read their Bible every day and if they get behind, they think they have to catch it up.

And so, they never do and they give it up. You don’t have to catch it up. If you miss it for 3 days, you just start on day four. You don’t have to go back and catch it up.

And so, this letting go of this rule thing that we’re so used to and just letting it be a rhythm. When that happens, the rhythm is just waiting. It doesn’t expire. It’s not running to start you.

Just like I said in that thing, you don’t have to make it up. You just stay and roll with it. You just know you’re going to have a re-entry plan. Wherever you are, you’re just going to come back.

And you can do this. You’ve done something amazing by doing this. Of course, you’ve practiced paying attention to your heart without even really noticing it. You’ve practiced being in your body instead of only in your head.

You’ve sat with silence. You’ve listened. You’ve begun to notice things and write them down. That’s something big.

What you’ve built here is a container. Stillness isn’t the destination. It’s the foundation. Everything that comes next in your relationship with Jesus can come out of that place of stillness.

The more familiar you are with the quiet, with your own inner landscape, with listening, the more room there is for you to meet God in a real relationship. So, you’re going to design your rhythm. Keep it small. Try it at least once a week, and come back to it often.

You’ll really be glad you did.