Everydailyness

I like made up words. And no one makes up better words than my pastor.

This is one of his—everydailyness—and I am learning more about more about what it means, well, every day.

For example, after reading my Bible for 50 days in a row, I felt like I’d developed a habit. Now I’m over 500 days in a row and I feel like I’ve developed into a different Christ-follower.

On the other hand, I’ve been exercising most days—not every day—and it shows in my training. When I “take a few days off,” it’s a bit like starting over when I go for a run.

There is cumulative power in everydailyness.

This applies in a rather amazing ways in your marriage. If you are consistently affectionate with your spouse, the affection grows. If, on the other hand, your affection is sporadic, so will your feelings of romantic love be. And you have just entered a danger zone.

It works with parenting, and quickly. Every parent has bad days, and sometimes even bad weeks. But striving to be loving every day, faithful with boundaries every time they go out, etc. will yield better adjusted grown up kids. By the way, the converse of this is also true. If you parent poorly every day, the destruction of your child will run deep.

As a musician/artist, you’ve seen this too. The legendary pianist Paderewski once said of his work, "If I miss one day of practice, I notice it. If I miss two days, the critics notice it. If I miss three days, the audience notices it."

Want to be a great leader? It isn’t the exceptional moment that will get you there; it’s the everydailyness of faithful leadership.

Want to be a great worshipers? Shift your spiritual discipline of worship from "every week or two" to everydailyness. Do this for 6 months and your Sunday worship encounter will be unlike anything you’ve experienced before.

I can hear your creatives arguing with me. You love variety. You love diversity. Find a new route. Discover a new path. I get it. I’m the same way. And I’ve argued myself out of the rewards that come with the everydailyness of creativity. Let me encourage you not to make this a false dichotomy. Consistency is never the enemy of creativity. Complacency is.

Finally Christian, let me remind you of the words of our Master: “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross DAILY, and follow me.” (Luke 9:23)

Perhaps today is the day you add my pastor’s word to your vocab—and discover the amazing power of everydailyness.