It’s January 2nd – I woke up with ONE word on my brain – STRUCTURE.

This is a WISDOM word – God KNOWS we need STRUCTURE in our lives – and we know that too.

Again and AGAIN this last week that word has come up – whether it was talking to my aunt (whose birthday is today) – she has lived at the family farmstead her whole life and talks often about her farm duties – and how cows needed the structure in a milking schedule – and how she puts in a structure to her day which really has no demands and so could be lonely but she keeps busy with her self-assigned tasks of certain cleaning – or plant watering – or something that is so universal to many Americans – watching the Price is Right at 11am with the local news on TV after that. My Grandma had us watching Card Sharks or Wheel of Fortune before The Price is Right. YES STRUCTURE – even the game shows have a structure of certain time for introductions – getting all the games in – the big wheel has the same order of the numbers – the hosts showed up each time to our homes – and even at night now Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy – who could imagine how important TV became to structure…  One certainty I can state is that although I don’t want to give TV more credit than it is due – because it can waste your time – there is NO show aside from maybe the superbowl that my family sat down together and watched – and even the superbowl it was just for the commercials – which you know come in on SCHEDULE.

God Knows KIDS need SCHEDULE – as I know many a grandma who states that and then implements that into kids lives – and teachers too – from circle time to snack time to rest time – how crucial it is. Structure is good for everything from the digestive system – to the learning institutions semester schedules – to paying the mortgage on time – to figuring out when to put the recycling out. My mom has been retired many years and she has put in a soft schedule for herself even if much of it is open schedule – every day is Saturday she says… (She knew the 8-4 or 9-5 workweek for decades)… She now makes a good schedule for herself, has volunteering every other week on Tuesdays, she has monthly lunch bunches, she has a calendar next to the phone for organizing. My family on the farm used to write on the calendar in retrospective ways – the temperature – the events of the day if someone visited – if a baby was born – etc. Cleaning up the farmhouse I found some of the 50 plus years of calendars kept – paper year after year provided by the pharmacy. Farm life included paying attention to outside life too.

(Honestly since very few of us live that farm life anymore – and buy our food from the stores, we seem like we should have little to complain about. The one thing that crosses my 89yr old aunt’s mind almost EVERY MORNING – is thankfulness that she doesn’t have to go out at 5am to go get the cows ready for milking. She has not for nearly 60 years but that thankfulness is still fresh on her mind like their fresh milk)

How is our lives FRESH each morning? We know that God’s Mercies are fresh each morning…  THANK GOD! “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” Lam 3:22-23

My balancing of life is scheduled even if it seems chaotic to you and to me – I plan – LORD-WILLING I pray – and then I plan – I buy plane tickets and concert tickets and TRUST the Lord picking my schedule – I have certain tasks and then love UNSTRUCTURED time – which if I schedule to get my other stuff done – I give myself this gift.  If I don’t, if we don’t, we would either never stop working and run dry of creativity OR we would use so much creativity we wouldn’t buckle down to get things done – like general health and house things. In other words – put in structure for yourself or else someone else might (and even in nursing homes they LOVE their structure – meals, bingo, etc)… (and I just now looked at Facebook before writing (which I TRY not to do so it doesn’t ruin my writing schedule of early morning) – and what was the first post I saw? My cousin talking about the structured craft projects she did this past year which she said has been really good for her mental health… Yeah STRUCTURE.)

I think you get the point now – I see this year that we need to remember our STRUCTURE and although we look at life through a 2026 lens, we can see forever past and future truths of the Lord’s Plan in structuring our existence. If we don’t look to the Lord, He will come looking for us – and therefore He has put a STRUCTURED book in front of us – the BIBLE – it has lots of structure that perhaps you could say that people put in it – but the longevity of it suggests that God breathed it in HIS Structure and we simply decided where to put the ribbons in the hole-punched copies. Although each scripture section stands alone – we can learn the structure of scripture to help us to understand it – the background – the purpose – and how to use it in our lives.

Case in point – the psalms are organized by people but surely with God’s blessing. The books in the old testament have parallel stories for reinforcement of understanding – the book of Isaiah is said to be a mini bible – the Torah part of the 5 books of Moses is appreciated by Jewish people still today thousands of years later. The structure was put in for the Law – the Prophets – the historical books etc – structure was already in place before Christ came to earth as a man. And even the structure was put forth by a structural meeting of scholars from just a few years after Christ for the New Testament and  Jesus Himself came to fulfill prophecy – which God STRUCTURED ahead of time. The gospels are parallel with their own independent way to reach certain people.

If there is one thing I know about God – is that HE HAS HIS OWN STRUCTURE – we approach sometimes the understanding but really how can we – we only approach and never fully know how it all works – I mean how can one structurally both make the snow and make each snowflake unique – only God – only God…  How can people be anatomically similar and not – and how can we understand people generally and yet know every person is unique – Only God could put that structure and understand it into His World…  How can God? God is God and we are not. But structure is something that God HAS – yet His LOVE allows for the failures and forgiveness – the messes and mercy – the gumming up of situations and HIS GRACE.

SO – not a big surprise but STRUCTURE is a good word for this new year – keep not a restrictive hand on yourself but a structure that allows you to thrive in a form that gives both boundaries and opportunities…  (We like some structure on our adventures too – and work hard so that we can play hard – God knows – God knows…)

God Bless you in 2026 – Let us all start and continue reading more bible – let us all start and continue living our lives – let us all start and continue to reduce our agendas for HIS…  If we are to “lose self” – meaning be less ME ME ME – let us instead FIND life in God – amen amen amen…

AMEN AMEN AMEN

PS – although I have read the whole bible – I needed help and structuring to learn how it is organized is crucial – for example here are helps in how the psalms are structured into 5 “books”  https://www.esv.org/resources/esv-global-study-bible/chart-19-03/ ) 

PS – as soon as I closed this I looked at my email – it was bible gateway’s scripture of the day Psalm 90:12 NKJV “So teach us to number our days, That we may gain a heart of wisdom.” – God’s perfectly timed theme… STRUCTURE…