What you Need to Know When Life Feels Mundane

It is the middle of winter here, cold and quiet.  Each day of the calendar turns without much surprise.  Snow lingers heavy, dirty, old.  And we all keep going.

Do the school.  Do the work.  Pay the bills.  Get up and do it all over again.

Drops in the bucket.  Seemingly nothing.

Daily faithfulness can feel like a snail’s pace, or no pace at all.  A treadmill maybe?

But we aren’t the first ones to walk thick in this.  There is a risk, a huge risk, when we zoom into the small and mundane, fixate there, and never zoom out, and see.

In Exodus 32 The Israelites waited for Moses to come down off the mountain, everyday waiting.  Long and slow waiting, while Moses met with God.  God, in His compassion, was laying a blueprint, He was articulating a good and glorious plan, a detailed plan for their good, and the Israelites, not knowing, not understanding, not trusting, got frustrated in their wait.

Has God forgotten us? they wondered.  And in their desperation for something new, something tangible, something exciting, they made a god of their own.

So much is happening while we are dripping drops in the bucket, friends.  Our drops are making tiny splashes and ripples, He is working out a plan here, our buckets are getting fuller, perseverance is spreading, growing, changing, things we will never notice if we only focus on how small, how quiet, the drops are.

Faithfulness.  

Waiting.

I’m convinced there is an empty space in our hearts that craves something new, different, and exciting.  It’s a God sized hole, something bored into our hearts when Eve bit that apple, and it’s noisy.  That screaming hole supports an industry of new,  we quiet it with a new car, new clothes, a new challenge or a cleaning regimen because there is nothing like the excitement of something new.  But all of those things fill so temporarily, friends.  They fill and we’re still empty.  We still feel empty.

Behold, I am doing a new thing. Isaiah 43:19

He is doing stuff in this season of tiny drops. He is doing something new in you, one drip at a time.  Can we trust him with that?  Can we zoom out and see Him amongst the daily, the quiet, the mundane?  Can we watch Him there, grasp for Him there?  What if we fill that aching hole, with glimpses of that Him?

You wake early to seek Him.  A drop that makes a difference.

You pack lunches with gratitude and gratefulness.  A drop that matters more than you know.

You go to work, do you job heartily.  A drop that becomes your inheritance (Col 3:23-24).

You love your family, your spouse, faithfully.  A drop that becomes your blessing (Prov. 31:28)

 

Distractions scream loud, friends, discontentment breeds easily, but Hope is found is the tiny glimpses of Him that are everywhere, if we only choose to see them.

Search for the ripples, the tiny splashes, friends.  See Him in the quick smile, the tiny flicker of authentic gratitude that is growing in the heart of your 5 year old.  Don’t miss that ripple.

Drops fill buckets, friends.  Tiny drips overflow cups.  If only we keep adding our drops, faithfully.

See Him in the softening heart of your husband, the bits of grace in your marriage.  All of creation speaks His name, which means our lives do as well.  Be brave enough to see it today.  On a cold January day, wrought with faithfulness and small things, be brave enough to trust that He is doing stuff, He working things out for our good.  And start looking for it.  Bravely.