Habits of the Household: Practicing the Story of God in Everyday Family Rhythms

by Justin Whitmel Earley

was thinking about how this was a normal night, which means their last image of me most days is of this wild taskmaster raging about how if they don’t get pj’s on this instant there will be dramatic physical consequences. I wondered if they sensed the irony when, before turning out the lights, I gave them a short bedtime prayer and told them that God loves them and I do too. I wondered what they think love means.

One of the most significant things about any household is what is considered to be normal. Moments aggregate, and they become memories and tradition. Our routines become who we are, become the story and culture of our families.

One night is one thing. A norm is another.

Parent: Do you see my eyes? Child: Yes. Parent: Can you see that I see your eyes? Child: Yes. Parent: Do you know that I love you? Child: Yes.

Parent: Do you know that I love you no matter what bad things you do? Child: Yes. Parent: Do you know that I love you no matter what good things you do? Child: Yes. Parent: Who else loves you like that? Child: God does. Parent: Even more than me? Child: Yes. Parent: Rest in that love.

Nothing is normal until it is.

To steward the habits of your family is to steward the hearts of your family.

Habits are fascinating little things. They are the things we do over and over, semiconsciously to unconsciously. By definition, they are, of course, little. But the aggregate impact of habits is as big as each habit is small. Habits not only occupy most of our time, they form most of our minds.

You can’t think yourself out of a pattern you didn’t think yourself into. You practiced yourself into it, so you have to practice your way out.

Habits of the household are not just actions that form our families’ routines, they are liturgies

But until our hopes make their way from our heads to our habits, nothing changes.

The idea of the parents we want to be remains stuck in our minds, and our kids suffer for that. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

“whenever you go out, walk together, and when you reach your destination, stay together”),

The most Christian way to think about our households is that they are little “schools of love,” places where we have one vocation, one calling: to form all who live here into lovers of God and neighbor.

By not choosing our habits carefully, we are falling back on rhythms that are forming us in all of the usual patterns of unceasing screentime, unending busyness, unrivaled consumerism, unrelenting loneliness, unmitigated addictions, and unparalleled distraction.

I am suggesting that we reclaim the idea of creating a rule of life in our families so we can produce something other than the typical anxiety-ridden, depression-prone, lonely, confused, and screen-addicted teenager. So we can form children in God’s love. So we can train them in meaningful relationships. So we can teach them the peace that comes with knowing the unconditional love of Jesus. So we can create homes that are missional lights in a dark world.

We need a household rule of life if we are to become families that love the world like God loves us. This is an urgent matter for our families, and it’s also an urgent matter of neighbor love.

My habits are forming me into a certain kind of parent. My parenting is forming them into certain kinds of children. We are all, together, forming each other into a certain kind of family.

Our best parenting comes when we think less about being parents of children and more about being children of God.

our habits won’t change God’s love for us, but God’s love for us can and should change our habits.