Five Minute Friday: Anything but Routine
Photo: Sacha Chua, flickr
Routines make up the stuff of life.
Whether from brushing our teeth to making the bed (or not) to checking our social-media feeds, we fill our lives with actions that we do again and again. Some of the routines can be life-giving, and some can suck the energy from us.
Some of my best routines? One is going to the gym regularly. I’m off to body combat soon, which makes me happy and feel alive. I have some lovely friends at the gym, and when I don’t feel like going, I know that I will be letting them down if I don’t. Sometimes we let each other off the hook, but so many times after our sweat sessions, we’ve remarked how glad we are that we went, and how we wouldn’t have if we hadn’t texted our friend beforehand.
Another is my weekly writing video call with two writer friends. Some weeks I can’t attend, but I try to make it a priority (even missing out on other gym classes – see above) because of the life that it brings to me and my friends. We cry together, get real, encourage each other, and share our writing. As we remarked yesterday, we are each other’s people. The way our writing calls are structured, we actually get some writing done too – I got a devotional drafted yesterday that I certainly would not have done had I been left to my own devices.
Those two routines involve other people, but one I do on my own definitely feeds my soul – my Bible reading and prayer times. I can’t claim to have a “proper” time every day, but when I do, I feel more centered in God and ready to face the day. Lately I’ve been taking a chunk of the gospels and putting it into poetic verse. This is a way for me to slow down and digest the words of Jesus, to get them rolling through my head and my heart.
What routines do you embrace? Why, or why not?
This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday link-up. You can find today’s prompt here.
Hello! 
Loved this. I was never that good at routine until my recent marriage. My precious husband makes it fun and part of what we do every day – Word, Exercise and Prayer. So blessed in this way. Keep up the awesome work and writing.
A lovely benefit of married life! Thanks for popping over.
I wake at 6.45, make myself a cup of green tea, go back to bed and have my ‘quiet time’, Bible reading and prayer. I get up between 7.45 and 8
That’s my routine first thing every day.
So great that you build it in as a ‘first thing’ – in more ways than one. I should do the same!
It’s harder if you have family!
I like “body combat!” What a great phrase! I have whole lists of routines to remind me of my routines.
FMF #63 this week.