The thought hit me tonight as I was taking my son to Shelter – his middle school youth ministry…
“For the first time in a very long time, the mundane things of life are actually really exciting!”
Let me explain…
The other day, it snowed – maybe an inch not two. I got up early to shovel for the family we are staying with. I shoveled the driveway, the sidewalks, the front porch…fighting the monotony of waiting, I shoveled the wooden deck. Not wanting to wait more, I decided that I would shovel all the way to the place where the mailboxes for the neighborhood is. Easily 50 yards of sidewalk, it was the most rewarding shoveling I’ve done in a long while, maybe since shoveling for Ms. Mary (my favorite Iowa neighbor!). A mundane task that is “no fun” until you are doing unto the Lord!
Further…
How about the grocery store? Now I know moms have a love hate with the grocery store, I understand and I’m not a mom. These days, it is a trip down the aisles of exploration with my four year old, talking, laughing about silly things, and realizing that I have potentially let the last four years go by way too fast. Face to face with regret, the regret of not letting the life God intended for me to have with my family be the reality that He intended it to be.
I realize…
In this time of waiting, I have come to realize that what Jesus said in John 10:10…
“10 The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.”
That rich and satisfying life can be found in the little mundane things that we take for granted way too often. It is in the mundane that we often found peace and strength from our Heavenly Father. Thinking of it as lifting weights or running, one of those I do not have much expertise in – it’s the running part – I know that shocks those of you that know me. But it like breaking down the muscle of our bodies and learning to build them up again to accomplish the tasks…
Let me stop there…
It is not just to accomplish the tasks! Perhaps it is to have moment of destiny. Sometimes for a person that we may or may not know, a person we may meet in the store, on the sidewalk, or at our favorite coffee shop. Maybe, just maybe – the mundane create the places/the space for us to have hearts open to hear what Abba/Daddy is saying to us. Perhaps instead of filling our thoughts and heart with dread and frustration, “this way” of the Father creates a stillness to hear Him encourage us and to lift our spirits. These spaces are the spaces that give us the courage to say,
“I can’t do this anymore, Lord!!!!!
It hurts so much!!!!!
I just don’t understand why!!!!!
I just don’t want to hurt anymore!!!!!”
It’s in those spaces that God says…
“You’re right you can’t!
I’ll take the pain.
I know why.
The pain will make sense soon!
Remember that all of the no’s are just preparing you for a bigger and better YES! A yes that is filled with mundane moments if you let them happen. Or a Yes that is filled with awe and wonder! A yes filled with Spirit, Passion, Righteousness, Love, Joy, Peace – a YES filled with my son JESUS!”
So…
The mundane will always be with us… it will always try to tie up our obligations, our soul, tug at our emotions, give us permission to dismiss God’s mighty hand. Yet if we take the mundane and turn them into a spectacular show of God’s glorious writing ability to craft a story that Hollywood can’t even begin to understand or write. A story filled with a main character that loves you and I. A main character that has called you and I! A main character that gave His life for you and I! A main character that loves us so much, that He died for you and me! He took our mundane and made it miraculous!
Jesus, thank you for taking the mundane life of an ordinary guy, and turning it into a thrill of a lifetime! I don’t understand Your ways, but Your word tells me that my ways are not Your ways; therefore, I shouldn’t always get bothered when I do not understand them. Jesus, forgive me when I wander away from the script your are writing, for the script that my head is trying to conjure up through a plethora of knotted upside down emotions that lie to me! They tell me to go ahead a eat piece of fruit from the tree of “the Knowledge of Good and Evil”. Lord, help me to trust your script, and listen to it as you unfold it! Lord, forgive me for allowing my life, a life that is to reflect You and Your wondrous love for all, turn into a mundane, generic, bill board for my wishes!
Isaiah 55:8&9, “8 “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord.“And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. 9 For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”
Not mine…
Lord, let Your will be done, not mine!
Matt. 6:9 & 10, 9 “This, then, is how you should pray, “‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, 10 your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”