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In the future, when your son asks you, \u201cWhat is the meaning of the stipulations, decrees and laws the LORD our God has commanded you?\u201d tell him: \u201cWe were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. Before our eyes the LORD sent signs and wonders\u2014great and terrible\u2014on Egypt and Pharaoh and his whole household. But he brought us out from there to bring us in and give us the land he promised on oath to our ancestors. The LORD commanded us to obey all these decrees and to fear the LORD our God, so that we might always prosper and be kept alive, as is the case today. And if we are careful to obey all this law before the LORD our God, as he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness.\u201d Deuteronomy 6:20-25

Scattered from the community of the church in these days, it\u2019s more important than ever to stay faithful in the everyday of our lives. It\u2019s also a lot harder.

Without a worship gathering with the community at church, we\u2019ve lost a good chunk of what gave rhythm to our week. Every rhythm starts with a down beat to kick off a new measure. The down beat of our weekly rhythm was Sunday worship\u2014the first thing that happened to mark the arrival of the first day of a new week. Sunday worship together was the down beat that marked off God\u2019s weekly rhythm of grace, a reminder that God had faithfully seen us through the past week and had given us another week ahead.

But now we\u2019re scattered from the communal gathering of worship. The down beat has been lost, or if not lost\u2014it\u2019s certainly gotten a lot harder to hear. Our weeks and our days flow into one another, out of sync and out of rhythm.

So it\u2019s more important than ever to keep the beat at home. To stay faithful to the rhythms of grace in our daily lives. But, as I said, without the big down beat of communal worship on Sundays to set the rhythm of the week, it\u2019s also a lot harder to find that daily groove at home.

Moses spoke these words in Deuteronomy to a people who likewise were about to be scattered from the communal drum beat of worship. They too would find it difficult to keep time in the rhythms of grace on their own. But, as we discussed in this past Wednesday\u2019s devotion, Moses told them how important it was to keep it alive at home. How important it was to talk about the ways of the Lord when you\u2019re sitting around and when you\u2019re on the go, when you go out and when you come in, as the first thing in the morning and the last thing at night.

Great idea in theory. Much like being told to just pray more or read your Bible. Sure, that\u2019ll work, but how do I do it? If I\u2019m supposed to be carrying the rhythms of faith in my daily life, what does it look like?

Well, the Israelites must have asked Moses that question too, because he shows them what it might look like, giving just a little example. And as it turns out home rhythms look a lot more informal than Sunday worship. They look a lot more like a story.

When your kids are having trouble understanding why you\u2019re watching a Sunday service online, or taking time out for prayer at the table, or asking them to apologize to or forgive their sibling: then tell a story!

If you\u2019re having trouble remembering why you\u2019re keeping these rhythms of worship or devotion or what they really mean anyway: then tell a story!

If a neighbour who sees you watching worship on your tablet in your backyard asks you what on earth you\u2019re doing: then tell a story!

We tend to beat ourselves up for not doing enough when it comes to our faith rhythms. Which means we that we either go through life as sourpusses or that we give up altogether because it\u2019s just too big a burden.

But then that\u2019s not a rhythm of grace.

The grace of the rhythm is that the rhythm is already grooving. The beat dropped at the dawn of creation and the trees of the field still clap along. God drummed His forgiveness and grace into the fabric of creation and our lives through Jesus and the Spirit long before most of us even knew how to talk. It\u2019s nothing you don\u2019t already have: the same old, old story of Jesus and His love.

So if you\u2019re having trouble finding the beat at home, start with the story. The story you already know. There\u2019s all sorts of places to start\u2026

-God created the heavens and the earth\u2026
-God parted the sea and saved the Israelites from slavery \u2026
-David sure messed up a lot, but he was still a man after God\u2019s own heart\u2026
-Jesus came to show me that God was quite literally dying to love me\u2026

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