Everywhere you look bigger and better and faster and stronger are all the craze. We put in longer hours to get ahead in life. We set bigger goals and have flashy ideas. We all want to go somewhere and be something in life. It’s hard to be content with the normal, ordinary, regular, mundane and simple kind of life.
The more I look at things in my own life, the more I believe that mundane might actually be God-ordained. I know that sounds ridiculous but think about it for a minute. Jesus, the one we believe to be the very Son of God, was a normal, ordinary dude. He lived the life of a carpenter’s son for about 30 years. He wasn’t conquering the world or planting mega-churches. He wasn’t president, pope or prime minister. He was by all standards in our world a pee-on. He was an insignificant man leading a mundane existence.
Now before some of you think I’m some heretical monster, yes I do believe Jesus was a pretty miraculous man. Yes I believe he was/is the Son of God. Yes, I believe he died and rose and did many other things that normal people can’t do. But I do believe that he was a real, simple man. This means he dealt with the mundane things in life too.
But not just him. I love the account of creation in the Bible. I love how each thing was created perfect in its own way. I love how God carefully thought out each part of the earth and did everything just right. But what about now? I mean have you ever thought about the sunrise and sunset we see each and every day? Does it just happen? I think God is the one who tells the sun to keep shining. I believe he’s the one who tells the moon to keep on moving. I believe God is the one who each and every day reminds the earth to keep spinning.
Or look at the flowers in your garden. Do you think that each season God tells new ones to spring from the ground giving happiness to the hearts of gardeners the world over? You see these are pretty mundane tasks when you look at the power of the God who created everything.
I think God is the God of the mundane. I think he is knee-deep in the everyday messes of our lives. I think God can, and does do more with our simple days than with our well-planned power hours. Perhaps the best thing we can do is to just pause for a moment and think about the simplest parts of our lives. Maybe for us to better understand the precious nature of every minute, we need to watch the way leaves on a tree turn upside-down when it’s going to rain. Or pay attention to the way the clouds billow above us providing a little relief on those hotter than hot days.
Yeah, God is bigger than our imaginations. Yep, he has the power to create out of nothing. You bet he saved us and is preparing to take us back to be with him. But I bet God cares just as much about your boring days as he does about your busy days. And yes he cares about your bad hair morning. He cares about the way you see yourself in the mirror. He cares that your car won’t start or that your husband is a bit of a jerk. He cares about the big stuff and the seeming insignificant stuff. That’s what makes him God after all.
Take a moment today and look for the most mundane part of your day (like putting the cheese on your hamburger) and realize that God was in that moment too!
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