Merging Lane

It's 5:30 in the morning. Vic's already gone to work, but the coffee's going. He starts it before he leaves. I'm in the recliner by the living room window, breakfast on my lap, looking out over the ranch. Bible open, before the day gets moving. Nothing dramatic about it. Just an ordinary morning.

It wasn't always like this this summer, though. And it took a sermon to help me name what had actually happened in between.

Pastor Isaac preached this week on Colossians 2, in a sermon called "Continue." One line has stuck with me since: receiving Christ isn't a parking spot. It's a merging lane.


I didn't fully understand how true that was until I looked back at my own summer.

I didn't make a decision to stop reading my Bible this summer.

I just started doing it less.

At first, maybe I skipped a morning here and there. Then a couple of mornings in a week. Summer schedules got a little looser, mornings got a little busier, and before I really noticed what was happening, sitting down with my Bible before the day started had become the exception instead of the routine.

My workout routine followed a similar path. I didn't quit working out. I just let it slide. And now that I'm slowly adding those things back into my mornings, I've been reminded of something I wish I hadn't forgotten: it is much easier to keep a good habit going than it is to rebuild one you've let go. Getting back to the weights is harder than it was when I was doing it consistently.

My muscles remember what they used to do, but they aren't quite ready to do it again. And spiritually, I think something similar happens. I didn't suddenly decide I didn't need God's Word. I didn't stop believing it mattered. I just stopped making space for it as consistently as I had before. The drift was so ordinary that I almost didn't notice it. But I'm noticing the difference now that I've started again.

This past week, I've been getting up when Vic leaves for work at 5:30 and reading my Bible while I eat breakfast. And yes, I'm physically more refueled because I'm not waiting until 10:00 to eat. But there's something deeper happening, too.

I'm starting the day grounded in Truth.

I don't read my Bible each morning because I'm trying to collect more information. After nearly 30 years of reading Scripture, that's not really what I'm looking for. I need the grounding. Without it, I can slip pretty easily back into my old patterns of perfection and performance. I start measuring the day by what I accomplish, trying to control what I can't control, feeling like I should be doing more, and generally forgetting that I am not the one holding the whole thing together.

Before the emails, errands, decisions, kids, distractions, and whatever else the day throws at me, I need to remember what is true.

The weights are coming back this week. But Scripture came first.

Colossians 2:7 gives us three pictures for what happens next: rooted, built up, strengthened.

Rooted, I already know what that looks like right now. Scripture, breakfast, 5:30am, before anything else gets a vote.

Built up doesn't happen in one sitting. It's one ordinary morning, then another, then another. No single dramatic day where I "arrived." Just another course added to what was already there. Scripture is anchored to breakfast now. This week, the weights get stacked on top of both. That's habit stacking, and it's also just what being built up looks like, one anchored piece at a time.

Strengthened is still ahead of me, if I'm honest. The weights go back on the schedule this week, and I already know it won't feel the way it used to for a while. That's not a setback. That's just what strengthening looks like.

Last week, the words "overflowing with thankfulness" felt a little out of reach. It was hard. Parenting an adult child and a middle schooler under the same roof brings two very different kinds of hard, and there were things happening that I could not control. And if I'm honest, that is where I struggle most. I want to fix things. I want to make things better. I want to be able to do something that changes the outcome. But sometimes loving someone means standing beside them when you cannot fix it for them.

I'm not overflowing with thankfulness this week. But I am starting my mornings in the Word again, and I think there is something important about that. I am reminding myself, before the day gets going, that I am not the one holding it all together. I don't have to have the answers. I don't have to control the outcome. I can be rooted in the One who does.

Tomorrow morning, I'll be back in that recliner by the window, breakfast on my lap, looking out over the same ranch. The coffee will already be going, not because I made it, but because Vic made it for me before he ever left the house.

I don't know if this will be the week overflowing with thankfulness finally shows up. I don't know if next week will be easier than this one or harder. But I know where I'll be sitting, and I know who I'm rooted in while I'm sitting there.

Not a parking spot. A merging lane.

Continue.

This Week
Think of one habit or rhythm that's quietly slipped this summer, not something dramatic, just something ordinary you used to do without thinking and now have to talk yourself into. Don't try to fix all of it this week.

If you're already back in it, rooted and steady, use this week to notice that and say thank you for it. If you're still parked, still meaning to get back to it, here's the assignment: pick the smallest piece, not the whole routine, and do that one piece tomorrow morning before anything else gets a vote.

Continuing was never about arriving. Real merging doesn't work that way either. You match the speed of what's already moving, then you go. Maybe that's what continuing actually is, not setting your own pace, but matching a rhythm that's already there, and letting it carry you in.

Prayer
Lord, thank you for being the ground we can stand on when nothing else feels steady.

Forgive us for the ways we quietly let go of the habits that keep us rooted in you, not all at once, but a little at a time, until we hardly noticed it happening. Help us start again this week, not in one big moment, but in small, ordinary steps.

Remind us that we are not the ones holding everything together, and that you are strong enough to hold what we cannot. Even in the weeks we're not overflowing with thankfulness yet, keep us rooted, keep building us up, and keep strengthening us for whatever this week holds.

Amen.