I rose with groggy eyes after waking through the night to feed a toddler I really like. The day ahead holds a protracted list of things to do, akin to changing diapers, feeding toddlers, school drop-offs, homework checking, folding laundry, and preparing meals. Everything ahead comes without fanfare and may often feel mundane. Sometimes, I can feel lost within the repetitive nature of my work in my home. I often wonder if any of this really matters. So many others are doing larger, higher, more lucrative, and glamorous things with their time. After all, most of us don’t look ahead to one other round of laundry being accomplished, and almost nobody else sees this work that I’m busy doing from morning until night.
Maybe your work feels similar, a job serving others with little thanks offered. You might be busy doing the identical task again and again day by day. Changing tires, flipping burgers, cleansing floors, or making deliveries. So lots of us spend our days stuck within the simplicity of our routines. Even though this by far is the norm, social media and the success-obsessed narrative of our culture tell us strange will not be enough. As followers of Christ, we’re also drawn to make more out of our lives. We know that God has made us on purpose, but sometimes, we confuse God’s calling for us with the cultural concept that success is what gives our lives meaning!
The real truth of the Bible is that God makes beauty out of all we do; we’re his masterpiece (Ephesians 2:10). His call is to live a faithful life, not a successful one (Proverbs 28:20). Every little bit of our work is to be done unto the Lord (Colossians 3:23-24). As Christ’s followers, day by day, task, and detail of our days has value because we’re God’s temple. We are walking, working, and worshipping as beacons of God’s light in big and small ways day by day on this world (1 Corinthians 6:19).
In the Simple and Unseen Moments, Our Character Grows
In a world where our highlight reels define us, it’s hard to see the worth within the less Instagram-worthy moments, yet those are the times when God does his best work.
Jesus, during his ministry, rebuked the religious elite for parading around while they fasted and prayed (Matthew 6:16-18), saying they received their reward in full but putting their every good work on display. He wanted greater than a spectacle from his followers. He wants our hearts. Our character shows up within the unglamorous moments we spend doing the identical easy thing to the most effective of our ability.
No matter what your day job is, you could have opportunities to offer, serve, pray, and love without being seen. It’s within the strange that we practice obedience. When we do our greatest in the easy unseen moments, once we live with the fruits of the spirit when nobody is giving us praise, and practice humility and repair for no other reason than God’s love compels us, that is when God sees the true nature of our hearts. He is in search of those that are faithful within the small things to bless (Luke 16:10).
We Are Living Sacrifices Unto the Lord
God called us to supply our lives as a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1) as a way of worship to our worthy God. This implies that we’re called to make use of whatever we’ve been given as a present that we are able to thank God for.
The truth of the gospel is that God often guarantees to be with us through our trials, through the limitless repetition of lots of our days, because we’ve a just us story to inform wherever we’ve been placed. God’s word says he knows the time and place of every of our lives (Acts 17:20). Our lives are as they’re to offer us and people around us the most effective possible probability of knowing Jesus. That means your job waiting tables will not be by mistake! It’s a calling, it’s a spot to live with integrity, and to share God’s love.
One of probably the most amazing modern examples of living in the sunshine despite circumstances that feel like enough is from Anthony Hinton. In his book The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Freedom on Death Row, he tells a tragic but entirely true story of being falsely convicted and spending most of his life on death row, stuck in an unjust system. While he feels anger and pain and suffers greatly, the Lord meets him. He finds a option to make his tiny cell a spot where God may be found, a lightweight in literally certainly one of the darkest places on this world. That’s the facility of the gospel at work. God transforms all we do into holy work.
In God’s Kingdom, We Are Called to Live with Grateful Hearts
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 says, “Rejoice at all times, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for that is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” Giving thanks in all circumstances may be certainly one of the toughest and truly most counter-cultural things we are able to do. Our world says whatever we’ve will not be enough, we must always at all times be striving for me. But God asks us to live with contentment and practice day by day thanksgiving.
What in your life do you see as a burden that God might want you to search out a option to give him thanks for this example? When we start finding ways to offer thanks for an additional pair of socks to fold it transforms how we view the work in front of us. I’m thankful for tiny socks to fold because meaning my house is filled with vigorous kids! I’m thankful for a sink filled with dishes since it means we’ve a full house that’s getting used. I’m thankful for this next customer to serve since it means I actually have a option to help provide for my family.
Whatever it’s we see as mundane can change into miraculous once we ask God to offer us a grateful heart. Just a few years back, I used to be struggling under the load of hysteria and depression, and I started the practice of journaling tiny things I used to be thankful for day by day. I got as much as 1,000 things on my list and this discipline helps transform my heart. I started to see the things I dreaded, the mundane monotony of caring for my babies, as something beautiful. God did a miracle in me after I was obedient to cultivate a grateful heart.
Whatever you might be waking as much as do today, I pray you see God in it. You see his provision, His grace. You feel his invitation to live as a lightweight irrespective of where you might be. In God’s Kingdom, the primary shall be last, and the last shall be first (Matthew 19:30). That means those that seek the riches of this world over a heart that desires to follow after the Lord really misses out on the true everlasting inheritance that we’re given access to as followers of Christ. Let’s embrace a quiet and straightforward life because it is a present from the Lord.
Photo Credit: GettyImages/Nattakorn Maneerat
