Routine Change

My dad is a man of routine. Any time of day, I could tell you his exact location, what he was doing and maybe even what he was eating. After trying hard to live a more spontaneous life, I've lately begun to see the beauty of routine. Life around me changes so fast, everything familiar is now a friend of sorts. 

The squirrel pattering his way across my roof just a few minutes after my alarm wakes me, the man on his smoke break waving at me as I drive past him on my way to work, that table against the wall where Kristin and I drink coffee together every Thursday morning, and my first peek out the window to see how beautiful Pikes Peak looks today. The content of today, its conversations, its highs and lows, will all be different than they were yesterday. These little things I used to think were boring and predictable and I tried so hard to avoid are now things I notice and savor every day. The same is true of the sunrise and the way the sunlight and shadows look on the mountains just before the sun goes down. They are faithful. 

When I try to explain to myself why we human beings like routine, the best answer I can conjure is that it reminds us every day of our humanity. From the first day of life, we needed a constant, but we also needed change. We can't avoid routine. The clock moves by the minute, the birds sing, we wash our faces and brush our teeth...or at least I hope so. We can't avoid change. The traffic patterns are different, our energy is greater or less than yesterday, and the phone rings with news. Life needs both. 

Is it possible that God designed the world just so, including our routines and changes, to help us better understand Him? The only things we know for certain, the routines, are that He is here with us now, He was there before we were, and He will be there at the end. Everything else changes. We're promised good and bad, difficult and easy, but the details remain a mystery. We're given just enough constant to endure the changes. That's all we need.