My teenagers are almost finished with spring soccer games. It’s been a hard season for them in many ways, but it’s been good for them to play. It’s been good to be outside, to work hard, to let grief energize.

Sometimes it’s just good to run fast.

There’s a rhythm to the game that is joyful to watch. At the beginning of the season, they were out of shape and out of sync with their teammates. But now they know each other and work well together. Some games are full of synchronized vitality, and the rhythm of the game is a thing of beauty.

Life hums along with its springtime rhythms. The sun is rising earlier and there is more light. More color. More beauty. The daily rhythm is a comfort, and some days I can slip into it without much effort.

But some days I cannot find this new rhythm. Some days I resist it.

I think about how God put rhythm in every part of creation–the tide, the moon, the seasons, the living. How every day is different and yet the same.

And how He made us to long for both.

In many ways, my days are the same as they always were. In many ways, I am the same. Yet all is different. All is changed. The empty chair and the lingering memory of death’s shadow changes everything.

But God is there. He provides a surrounding rhythm, and the pulse of life stays steady. He provides goodness in this land of living and a continual call to look upward.

I wonder about the rhythms of heaven. The Bible tells us that there is no night there, and so I wonder about the meter of days. I’m certain there is a pleasing hum to glory-living, a beautiful pattern of time-less being.

And no darkness. No pain. No sadness. A perfect balance of peaceful light.

The beauty of rhythm is the returning pattern. With every change, you work to find the new rhythm. The pattern sings to you like the breaking of day, reminding you of order and beauty and the goodness of God.

Eventually you do not resist the returning meter of the song.

Eventually the rhythm hums inside of you–a thing of beauty.

For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for a lifetime; Weeping may last for the night, but a shout of joy comes in the morning. Psalm 30:5

He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. Ecclesiastes 3:11