Life is extraordinarily ordinary. Days quickly melt into one another. Work trudges on. Bills need to be paid. Dishes need to be cleaned, laundry needs to be done, kids need to be dressed, groceries need to be purchased. Every. Single. Day. Pretty mundane, right? Did you think life would look this way?
We often hope for a different version of our lives, or even look into another’s world and long for something more adventurous, more exciting, more together. These longings are typically rooted in a lie that something different, something else, ANYTHING else is where the good life is. It doesn’t end. It can quickly breed an unholy discontent, frustration, and worst of all, a failure to see the goodness of God with where you’re at right now. The struggle is real.
Where is the hope? Where and when do we see change? As followers of Jesus we are freed from that cycle to see the grace of God in the everyday. Not only that, we are given the perspective and power to redeem the situations and circumstances that we presently find ourselves in.
In Tish Harrison Warren writes, ““Everyone wants a revolution. No one wants to do the dishes.” I was, and remain, a Christian who longs for revolution, for things to be made new and whole in beautiful and big ways. But what I am slowly seeing is that you can’t get to the revolution without learning to do the dishes. The kind of spiritual life and disciplines needed to sustain the Christian life are quiet, repetitive, and ordinary. I often want to skip the boring, daily stuff to get to the thrill of an edgy faith. But it’s in the dailiness of the Christian faith—the making the bed, the doing the dishes, the praying for our enemies, the reading the Bible, the quiet, the small—that God’s transformation takes root and grows.”
The Apostle Paul who encouraged us to “Make best use of the time” - It’s not accidental that he writes those words from a Roman prison cell. He was maligned, mistreated, and falsely accused yet he still went forward redeeming and making best use of the opportunities that God had given regardless. Not only did he trudge through, but he used every opportunity to demonstrate the grace that had been extended to him in Jesus through both words and deeds. Everyday is an opportunity to redeem the ordinary with the extraordinary grace of God.
So where has God placed you? Where are you frustrated? Where is it difficult to find satisfaction and fulfillment? Where are you everyday?
God has placed you there to show forth and reflect HIS grace and HIS goodness. In Christ HE has freed you from the endless cycle of discontent, impatience, and restlessness to find your rest in him. To see and show HIM in the mundane is to redeem the everyday.