The Sacredness of the Mundane

Here it is, me being brave.  Some of you know that for about 8 years I’ve wanted to write a book entitled The Sacredness of the Mundane about glorifying God in all of life.  The problem with such an idea is that I’ve been thinking about it for eight years.  To be fair, part of the process is allowing God to write the book in me before I pour the book out of me, but I feel like lately I’ve just been putting it off because it’s far easier to just punch out blog posts and keep things failure-free. 

Last night I was digging around on my computer and I actually found the intro of the book, that I’d written down in San Jose.  I added a paragraph or two and I’m posting it here, not because I think it’s awesome or that it’s the finished product, but to give you an idea of where I’m headed, and get any feedback, ideas, etc.  I’m still a little unsure about exactly what direction I’m going with it, but it will probably be around 10 chapters, each devoted to a different mundane aspect of life (work, home, family, finances, body) and how we can consecrate every detail to God to live for His glory.  So anyway, here’s the intro I found:

———–

I picked the shirt up off the floor for the fourteenth time that day and hung it back on the rack.  I wanted to cry.  What am I doing?  Just weeks earlier my life was filled.  Filled with prayer meetings, ministering to college women, Bible studies, fellowship gatherings, times of worship, retreats, and teaching of God’s Word.  In the course of a month, my husband and I, destined for the ministry adventure of a lifetime in sunny California, found ourselves out of ministry, out of work, living in a windowless cave in a foreign state, and in the midst of very foreign circumstances. 

That shirt I was picking up again was most likely a bright pink Only Nine size 3X boat-neck shirt, the kind that slips off the hanger every two minutes at my new place of employment, Nordstrom Rack.  The jarring difference between life in full-time ministry and life in full-time Bay Area Retail was disconcerting, to say the least.  Now, instead of exhorting college women to store up treasures in heaven, I was half-heartedly advising middle-aged women on which shade of navy complimented their skin-tone.  There were days in which, after hours of picking up that same wide-necked and impossibly slippery shirt up off the floor for the fourteenth time, I thought, “I know that this is all going to burn someday, but I’d actually like to be the one to do it.”

My passion, during our years serving in full-time ministry, was to exhort women that there is sacredness in the mundane.  The Apostle Paul said that “whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God,”¹ and I was convinced that it doesn’t get much more basic and mundane than eating and drinking.  Therefore, it seems logical to deduce that if Paul told us to eat and drink for the glory of God, then it must be possible for us to do all things to the glory of God.  If anything matters, everything matters.  This is the sacrament of life.  I was passionate about instilling into college women that all of life is sacred and meant to be lived out to the fullest for the glory of God.  I talked about this, taught about this, and prayed about this-and knew that God intended me to eventually write to you about this. 

When our life turned upside down in California, it seemed that my husband and I had been “shelved.”  My biggest fear, always, had been that somehow I would mess things up or miss God’s will or get in the way, and be therefore deemed unworthy of God’s use, set upon the shelf of has-been ministers, whose pride or ignorance kept them from being useful to God.  We had followed God to California out of obedience.  I knew that.  We didn’t want to move there in the first place, but sensed through months of prayer and fasting, that we were to leave our house, parents, family, friends, and successful ministry, and start from scratch in a spiritually cold and desolate city in the heart of Silicon Valley.  This made the catapult out of ministry and into the “real world” that much harder, because I somehow feared that I had “messed up” in some way, or become too puffed up with pride, or too hindering to God’s work, and He had therefore sentenced me to a lifetime of plus-sized fashions at Nordstrom Rack. 

However, God in His graciousness cleared my clouded vision, and reminded me of His love.  This passion He had instilled in me for his glory, for the sacredness of the mundane, needed to be tested, tried, and proved through the reality of life, the rains of adversity, and the worldly pressures of Silicon Valley.  What better way to ignite my heart for his glory than to send it through the very valley of the mundane, and to demonstrate, and share with you, like the cheering witnesses of Hebrews 11 that “It can be done, it can be done, this life of faith and godliness can be run.” 

Four years later, I found myself in another set of mundane circumstances that challenged my perspective even more.  Now, instead of working full-time, Jeff and I were living with my parents in order for Jeff to finish seminary, and I was home full-time chasing an 18-month old with another on the way.  I no longer even had the joy of keeping my own home, of expressing myself through the creative outlet of my house-even if all that meant was cleaning and cooking.  My identity was once more stripped away.  Now I was in someone else’s home, changing endless poopy diapers, managing morning sickness and migraines, and wondering how on earth this was for the glory of God.  At least in the work environment I was interacting with people.  Now I was just saying “no-no” for the five-hundredth time and cleaning my parents’ kitchen. 

This one had my stymied. How? How can this be fulfilling, exhilarating work for the Kingdom of God?  My ministry, my home, my friends, my transportation (we only had one car), my freedom, my identity was gone, or so it felt.  How can this painfully mundane life be filled with sacred meaning?  And once again, God began to meet me.  The road was rough, and at times very dark, but He birthed life through a thousand little deaths. 

So now, I challenge you.  If God’s Word commands it, God’s Spirit enables it.  Do you long for the adventure of living a life consumed with passion for the glory of God?  Do you desire divine encounters at the grocery store or in your classes? Do you yearn for something more invigorating than another poopy diaper?  Dare to live every moment for God’s glory and see Him in all that you do.  You will never be the same, and the incorruptible beauty that will radiate forth from your life will reflect His beauty and attract people to the True and Living God who alone can save their souls.  This is the secret that will turn your life from a dreary and habitually discouraging cycle of tediousness, to a joyful and exhilarating pursuit of the glory of God.  This is the sacredness of the mundane.

A note of caution:  Stepping up to the challenge of living every moment for the glory of God causes a shift in the heavenly places and Satan to stand up and take notice.  Our adversary will not kick a dead horse nor afflict those who sit on the sidelines.  Consider Job.  Count the Cost².  If you are willing, step forward and be counted.  The glorious reward is worth any hardship, and our glorious LORD is worthy of our life.  Therefore, “be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.  Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brother hood in the world.  But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory in Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.  To Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.”³