Break Out Of The Rut

by Andrew Cromwell

It has been said that a rut is nothing more than a grave with the ends knocked out.  The truth is, we all get stuck in the routine and if we’re not careful, we become blinded to the new thing that God wants to do in our lives.

Routine can be a wonderful thing.  It lends consistency to our lives and helps us accomplish many tasks.  The problem is that personal and spiritual growth is stifled by routine.  Humans are wonderful at taking the “God” stuff in life and reducing it to a formula.  Whenever God does something new we try and figure out how to make it happen again.  So we end up repeating the same old prayers, singing the same old songs, and expecting God to move in the same old way He did yesterday.

But God is a God of the new!  In Isaiah chapter 43, God says “See, I am doing a new thing!”  God doesn’t want you to stay in the same old rut, believing the same old stuff.  Aren’t you tired of dealing with the same old sin patterns and repeating with the same old anger, pride and selfishness?  It’s time for something new!

So how do you break out of the rut and break into the new thing that God has for you?  

First, build an altar of worship.  In the Old Testament, we see the fathers of faith building altars wherever they went.  They took ordinary stones and fashioned them into places of worship.  These piles of stones then served as reminders of God’s reality and of the call to worship.  Today we don’t build altars out of stone, but we can build them out of the ordinary stuff of life.  We can place markers in our life that are reminders: a photograph, a prayer journal, a drawing — these things that are ordinary but can point us back to His goodness and grace and call us to worship.

Second, change your perspective. In the routine, we stop seeing things the right way. Like Elijah in the wilderness, we believe God has abandoned us.  Mark Batterson developed a good formula — change of pace + change of place = change of perspective.  Have you ever noticed, when we slow down and change our routine, suddenly God speaks?  It’s not that He wasn’t speaking before, it’s just that when we put our head down and push through life, we become dead to the sound of His voice.  So do something different!  Worship different, pray different, listen different — mix it up!  

Third, throw down your staff.  When God called Moses, He told him to throw down his staff.  Moses threw down this ordinary, everyday tool that was a symbol of his identity and his security, and it turned into a snake!  Boy, was he surprised.  God wants you to throw down those things in your life that you are holding onto — maybe it’s fear of being embarrassed, a favorite sin or the past that you keep replaying over and over.  Throw those things down and watch what God will do.