In my journey as a mother, I’ve been learning the importance of having something to ground you, something to keep you focused when life gets crazy.
As a Christian, this means trying to keep my focus on Jesus, even when things don’t go as planned.
Even when I run out of patience.
Even when the house is a mess and supper isn’t on the table at a reasonable hour.
Even when the 1-year-old is teething and won’t stop crying if you set him down.
It’s kind of hard to stay focused during those times, isn’t it?
One way I have found that helps me be focused on Jesus throughout the day is to set certain goals and plans that incorporate His word throughout the day. This gives me anchors that redirect my gaze back toward Him. While I won’t be completely focused on Him all day everyday, these events help reset my focus.
Just to be clear, even though I’m talking about goals and achieving vs. not achieving them, I’m talking about them as a way to “earn more points” doing good things. Rather, I see goals as a way to help focus us on what matters most to us.
But despite my best intentions, I often forget about those goals and they never really turn into anchors that my life revolves around.
I can’t be the only one, right?
I’m guessing not, so today’s post is about setting goals for making your home more Christ-focused. Liturgical living can be a great way to have a focus (that’s not yourself) for your days and weeks.
What is Liturgical Living?
If you don’t know what liturgical living is, here is a good overview.
Liturgical living goals are a wonderful way to give yourself a type of “roadmap” or plan so your observations and celebrations feel more intentions and less spontaneous.
Note that my “tips” here are things that I’ve learned from failed attempts at starting these habits in the past and am trying to avoid this time around. At the end, I’ll share my liturgical living goals for this month and easy ways to incorporate it into your life as a liturgical living “beginner”.
1) Start with One Thing
Don’t try to jump in and try to do everything new you see as soon as you learn about it.
I know, it can be discouraging if you see a bunch of ideas you want to try and they look amazing and now I’m telling you not to do them. But if you jump in and try to do everything at once, you’re probably not going to succeed at many…or any of them.
For this reason, I’m going to stick to three simple things to incorporate into my routine this month. If that goes well, maybe next month I’ll add a thing or two!
2) Attach your Habit to Something You Already Do
I have figured out that it’s easier for me to remember to do something, whether it’s a habit or a task, when I attach it to something I already have to do.
For example, when I get up early to have some “me time” before my son wakes up, I almost always have a glass of kombucha. As I have worked on being more consistent with my Bible reading, I have added it during that time.
That way, I know that once I grab my drink, the first thing I do when I sit down is grab my Bible and read from it.
By doing this first thing in the morning, I tend to be less distracted and more likely to sit down and read. By always reading my Bible when I grab my kombucha, my mind associates those two things and I’m more likely to remember to do my Bible reading.
3) Don’t be discouraged by comparing yourself to others
There are so many lovely blogs and Instagram accounts that I follow who talk about all the things they’re doing relating to liturgical living. (If you want to see a list, I have one at the end of this post, although there are lots more I’ve discovered since that post was written.)
These ladies are a wealth of information and a wonderful places to get ideas for things I could do, but like I said earlier, I can’t realistically jump in and try everything they’re all doing at once.
If you’re like me and just starting with this, it feels like we have to jump in and do all the celebrations all at once, but we don’t. That doesn’t mean they’re not good, just that they are things we can add as we go along.
Don’t feel bad if you didn’t do something to remember Adam and Eve on their day or Sarah on hers. There’s always today, and there’s always next year. If you just learned about something the day of and didn’t get to do it in time, make a note to yourself for next year to try it.
A few simple ways to focus on Christ as a liturgical living beginner:
- Do a simple Bible reading/devotion individually or as a family
- Sing a hymn each day or a couple times a week
- Do mealtime and bedtime prayers
- Have simple decorations or events to mark the changes in the seasons of the church year.
- Listen to hymns/religious music throughout the day (Lutheran Public Radio is awesome for this!)
As much as I’d love to be able to celebrate every feast, festival, or commemoration as it comes along, I just don’t have the time or brain capacity to make or do something special each time. So at this point, I’m going to focus on daily habits and major days such as Ash Wednesday and Easter.
My liturgical living goals for February 2020:
- Read the Bible daily
- Do mealtime and bedtime prayers (we already pray at meals, but really need to get started with our 1-year-old on nighttime prayers)
- Sing a hymn each day
Do you have any liturgical living goals? What are they?
