“Nor is it needful that we should have great things to do. . . We can do little things for God; I turn the cake that is frying on the pan for love of him, and that done, if there is nothing else to call me, I prostrate myself in worship before him, who has given me grace to work; afterwards I rise happier than a king. It is enough for me to pick up but a straw from the ground for the love of God.” Brother Lawrence
What would God have you do with joy and with thanksgiving in the mundane, obscure hours of your life? Can you learn to practice the present moment in that? Brother Lawrence had his kitchen. There he learned to serve God joyfully. And it became holy ground. Whenever and wherever you and I stand offering everything of whatever it is we have to God–that moment and that place becomes holy ground. Doing whatever it is we are called to do in the mundane with thanksgiving becomes an offering of our body as a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1-2).
Not a lot of people want to excel in what we call the mundane-which is actually the very stuff that makes up our lives. But it is here in this place, in the present, where we learn to become like Jesus. It is here that we learn to live well. It is what Jesus did for thirty years before he entered the public ministry and it is what he continued to do for the rest of his earthly life. Everything he did in his public ministry flowed from the thirty years of joyful obedience in the mundane. If we are not faithful in these little things, we won’t be faithful in the big things-at least not for long. So let us not despise the ordinary or the day of small things. Let us be present.
When we offer up these moments of our lives faithfully, being present without grasping for more, we’ll become evermore content.
These thoughts stem from prayers I’ve been offering to God. I’ve been asking God that I’d be more patient and loving in a particular sphere. Just tonight he made it very clear to me that I haven’t been patient and loving because I haven’t been present. Always I would rather be doing something else than being present in this certain daily, routine and mundane occurrence. So I am practicing this along with you, all the while knowing that I can only do it steeped in God’s grace and through the power of the Holy Spirit.
It’s hard to see mundane as holy, but it surely is because God is with us in our ordinary moments as much as in our grand ones.
Thanks for reminding me of that today, Marlena.
Tim