Jeff:
I believe this was a comment maybe from one of our communities, Jeremy, correct me if I’m wrong but the question that this comes from, that I think Jeremy will read, is how do you help your wife’s walk with God? How do you nudge or encourage your wife’s walk with Jesus and being in the scriptures and things of that nature? Or in other ways, what do you do in your wife’s devotional life is actually not doing well and it’s getting crushed by kids, by the demands of life, by toddlers? This is a really big deal and really practical, pertinent example that a lot of us with little kids struggle with. So Jeremy, how should we be thinking through this and where this came from?

Jeremy:
Yeah, if you’re in a situation where there’s a lot of littles, it’s really important for you to be connected to how’s your wife doing spiritually. What is she doing to fill up really in that part of her life so that she’s got that full tank to give to the kids, the family, and that she’s cultivating a deep relationship with the Lord? So much happens negative if she goes down. So many awesome things happen if she can continue to go deeper in her walk with God. So we had one mom in the home room say, “Speaking of rhythms, I’m a stay-at-home mom with an almost two year old and maternity, struggle to maintain the rhythm of daily Bible study and prayer. With another one on the way, I know it will just get harder. By the time he’s down for a nap or for bed I’m worn out so it’s hard to mentally focus on sitting without falling asleep. Ideas? Encouragement? How do you do this? How do you prioritize this? What resources work best?”

So there are definitely seasons of a family’s life and so during the seasons of our family’s life, when it was the most difficult on April and what this mom’s describing: being pregnant, having littles in the house, that’s a very tough season. And so we really made sure that we doubled down on the weekly rhythm, the stuff that I could really help April with. So when I started to see her struggle, she kept on trying to figure out, do I get up before the kids? She tried lots of things to make it awesome on her daily rhythm to be with the Lord but it was tough.

And there was some seasons where it just didn’t work and the rhythm kept getting whacked. And in those seasons, I would take the kids for a very specific three hour block for her to go and spend time with the Lord, go walk in the woods, go spend time at a coffee shop, really go deep. And a lot of the times we obsess over daily rhythms in our culture but in the Bible, the Bible really speaks actually a lot more about weekly rhythms and in living in this sort of rhythm of work and rest. And so the Sabbath, weekly seven day rhythm which was actually created by God at the beginning of creation, is the one rhythm that’s actually not a part of the created order. It was something God just gave to us. It’s not based on the moon or the sun.

The week is something that was given to us to design our life around. And it’s really important that if your wife is in a tough season where the daily rhythm just keeps getting whacked, then you come in with a very strong, weekly rhythm and rescue that situation with a tool because oftentimes I know, if you’re working guys, a lot of times we can’t step in on the daily rhythm which would be even better. But if you can’t do that I would say, really leverage the weekly rhythm. But Jeff, how have you guys wrestled with?

Jeff:
Yeah. Well it’s funny you said that because that’s what I was going to say too because there’s something about a weekly rhythm where it’s almost more like storing up food in the pantry that you can use on the other days, there’s something about how you’re pulling from a filling. You be filled and then you pull from that full. And yeah, I do the same thing with Alyssa where we, and sometimes it’s really hard to with work schedule and with what we got going with other things, but we try to make sure no matter what she gets a two to three hour or a half day break during the week that’s not her having to find that break in the fringe hours, meaning where there would already be a break, like kids’ nap time or night time.

Basically peak chaos, I tried to give her a break for half of a day. Now it’s not possible sometimes for dads that work a normal full schedule and 9:00 to 5:00, but maybe it’s on the weekend, maybe it’s on Sunday, maybe it’s on Saturday. Be creative but just give your wife a block where she can rest, read because especially when you have toddlers, you don’t get deep work, you don’t get deep long time. And so to give your wife that space for just one chunk per week… I think actually is also self too because it blesses you. It really comes back around to you because everyone does better when everyone’s healthier, including yourself.

And so I would just say, think about that, be encouraged with that, and know what it would look like to encourage your wife, maybe pray for her in the morning, tell her what you’re reading and what you’re thinking about, encourage her and then maybe also give her some space in a weekly way where she can go kind of…