The rut. The grind. The treadmill.

If you have ever thought of your daily life in these terms, you're not alone. Even the most positive among us have been in a spot where we can't muster much excitement about our lives. Call it the blahs; call it what you will. But if you’ve been there, even if for a short while, you know how a lack of joy about your purpose or direction can drastically affect your life.

If anything about this resonates with you, I want to offer you an attitude-changing perspective from a somewhat unlikely source. Let me set the stage.

Turn your mind’s eye to the Old Testament. The Israelites' 40 years of wandering in the desert are ending. Moses has died, and Joshua is the new leader of God’s people. The Israelites stand poised on one side of the Jordan River. In a miracle intended to recall the parting of the Red Sea, God will part the Jordan, and the Israelites will walk into the Promised Land on dry ground. But before this miraculous event takes place, Joshua gives some special instructions.

Joshua tells 12 men, one from each of the 12 tribes of Israel, to grab a large stone from the Jordan riverbed. Once they are on the other side, they will make a monument. In Joshua 4:6-8, Joshua tells them the purpose behind this monument: “In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean to you?’ you should tell them, ‘The water of the Jordan was cut off in front of the ark of the Lord’s covenant. When it crossed the Jordan, the Jordan’s water was cut off.’ Therefore, these stones will always be a memorial for the Israelites.“

It is almost impossible for us, thousands of years later, to grasp the significance of Joshua’s words, “in the future . . .” Those three simple words carried a weight too great for us to comprehend. These people were what was left of the wilderness wandering Israelites. Joshua’s audience had been languishing in the desert for a generation, where every day was a struggle under the miserable weight of their rebellion. For 40 years, they woke up each day knowing that their only purpose, their sole existence, was ticking off another day on the calendar of God's judgment. The future? A too-good-to-be-believed dream. The tiniest of hopes. A prayer too painful to even pray.

But then there they are, gathered as a people on the banks of the flood-swollen Jordan, and here, in three simple words, Joshua introduces the promise of a future not of wandering but of putting down roots. Joshua's picture of a life of rhythm and routine speaks of a day when people would return to the same place again and again. No more packing up their tents. No more wandering. There was an unspoken message in Joshua's prediction of future conversations with children: "Here, you'll tread the same pathways of your neighborhoods with your children. You'll walk these paths together, day after day, so often that one day, they will ask about that pile of rocks. And when they do, you can tell them of a God who keeps His promises.”

The older I get, the more I realize what a blessing "place" is. To know a place. To put down roots, even if for a season. To be surrounded by daily rhythms, if even for a little while. Place and rhythm are the fertile soil of memory.

Yet, we know that place and routine can become a source of dissatisfaction. We become callous to the simple blessings of our surroundings, enamored by the unspoken promise of somewhere other than here. Our routine becomes a rut. We become immune to the joys that surround us, and yet if we believe that God is who He is, we must accept that where we find ourselves is exactly where He wants us at the moment.

So let the Israelite’s hope on the banks of the Jordan be our hope. The promises of a place and a routine that God gives the Israelites are the same promises He gives us. The promise of God is that there is goodness in every day if we will but see it (Lam. 3:22-23). The promise of God is that He surrounds us with His presence, making any place we find ourselves in a place of peace (Ps. 139:7–12). The promise of God is that the daily routine, which can so easily slip into monotony, is rightly seen as a blessing, a gift from God to be enjoyed, not taken for granted (Col. 3:23-24).

Don’t miss this story’s attitude-changing lesson. Poised on the edge of God’s promise, God’s people longed for nothing more than the rhythms of routine and place. Should we find ourselves in a rut, let the Israelites’ perspective be a challenge to readjust ours.

This article originally appeared in the Good For You Newsletter, Vol: 14.

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The Blessing Of Routine

The older I get, the more I realize what a blessing "place" is. To know a place. To put down roots, even if for a season. To be surrounded by daily rhythms, if even for a little while. Place and rhythm are the fertile soil of memory.