It’s Sunday and Your Family Is Ready for a Restart to Worship
It can be easy to allow the enemy to entice us to grumble. But when Sunday comes, it can be a fresh, new restart for your entire week if you allow it to.
“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another
in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness
in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in
the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
Colossians 3:16-17 ESV
Another Sunday. More grumbling. Church is shy of two hours away and we are missing a few shoes, the girls cannot settle on what to wear and everything seems undone. I am sitting in my closet, closing my ears against the drama and noise.
It seems the enemy comes crouching at our door every Sabbath, and I walk into my closet and hold that handle tight, and pray. Praying away the quarreling and the sarcasm, the missing shoes, and the chaos. The dinner is in the oven, the table, the girls are ready and the boy has his hair feathered up in the front.
We are at the helm of the big van, the worship music is playing, and we are late. A silence of stress and hurry pervades the atmosphere.
Because living together isn’t easy. It is work… And today, we didn’t try hard enough. The enemy had the upper hand again.
My man is driving and quiet.
I can smell his cologne across the seats and his pressed blue shirt makes his eyes shine, but I know what is brewing in his heart. The van pulls to the side of the road, and it is all quiet.
The builder removes his seat belt and slowly steps out of the van, walking around the full length to the side, and opens the doors. The only sound is the tractor in the corn field.
The sun is hitting the top of the corn with a golden shine and all I can see are the faces in my mirror, and then I hear the most precious words leave my husband’s mouth. “Today, we will not let the enemy win. Today, you argued and you whined and you rose from bed late.”
“Why are you here on this earth?”
The silence hangs thick in the air with the corn dust and our chins hang low together.
This is where everything in our family shifted. Our focus. Our habits. Our holiness.
“We will restart this day with praise and adoration from our lips. We will put aside our grumbling and complaining and reset our hearts to focus on what is really important.
We are not here for a halfhearted attempt at living life. ALL for God’s glory.
Even on the weekends. Even when it is hard to live with others and more importantly, with ourselves.” And then he prayed.
On the side of the road, asking the Lord to forgive our family, my tears smear my makeup and I sit in the quiet.
There was silence and shame in our hearts… and respect for this man that stood at the gate of our home.
And the enemy of life and peace fled. Fast away.
There was a new preparation of our hearts. And we drove in worshipful and thankful silence for everything we do, have to do, and will do.
And the enemy will have NO HOLD on our Sabbath.
In His Word
“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” Colossians 3:16-17 ESV
“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 ESV
In Your Life
How can I set the tone of worship in my home as an example to my family?
What are the areas I see as the most sensitive, triggered, or exposed to conflict as my family prepares for worship?
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Follow September on IG here: Septemberanne. She spends most of her time here at September & Co. Shop, where you can find all of her resources for family discipleship and teaching.