Lord of the Mundane

I'll be the first to admit that I battle the war between being more than I am and being the best at what I am right now. Most of us with any bit of sense want to be more and achieve more before we hear the Lord say, "Well done, thy good and faithful servant".
Most of us want to make a difference.
Most of us want to leave some sort of legacy behind.
Most of us want to be a constant source of inspiration to our children, and not just a constant reminder of what not to do with your life.
Since I began writing this diary, I've discovered that most mothers (single or married) face the same challenges and insecurities. There's very little that separates us. Sure, we each peer into each others' lives from a distance, believing each possesses something more valuable than the other but lets face it...
We're all relatively mundane.
There's nothing all that glamorous about washing, folding and ironing the one millionth load of laundry on a weekly basis. Nothing particularly noteworthy about learning how to steer an SUV with one hand and re-buckle a car seat with another. Oh yea, and let's not forget that new chicken recipe you discovered online that was a hit with the entire house.
Yay.
Truth of the matter is that most of us become frustrated because there is nothing particularly big going on in our daily lives!
We get up, we brush 3-4 sets of teeth, make lunches. make beds, push a vacuum, sit behind a desk, roar up and down the highway to soccer games and rehearsals, and find new ways to dress up chicken thighs. That's what mommies do.
And doesn't that just sound exciting?!
It scares most of us to think that our eulogy will contain a few dry jokes about our quick wit and maybe even a tribute to our famous chicken recipe. Okay, okay.. .enough about the chicken I know! But how many mommies are like me and rely on this bird to keep us out of starvation?! You get my point.
We turn on the tv and things go downhill from there. Nothing but success story after success story. "I started a multi million dollar cupcake business right from my studio apartment!" "I just won $335 million dollars after 30 years of constant gambling on the lottery!" "My philanthropic work in the slums of India has earned me a humanitarian award and 1 million followers on twitter!"
The list goes on.
And we bury our heads in laundry, bills, and sippy cups, feeling a little less motivated to face the world.

Where is God in all of this monotony?

It's no secret that I love the bible. That passion was ignited in part by my father but lets face it; the average child isn't thrilled to sit for hours listening to Alexander Scourby read the Old Testament on audio tape! There was something within me that loved the Word of God from an early age. Maybe it was the vivid stories and larger than life subjects that drew me in. I'm not sure what it was initially, but to this day, I still love the Word of God... in most versions.
But I've got to be honest (which I try very hard to do in this diary): it has always been very difficult for me to believe that the bible stories were real. It's not that I don't believe the Word is truth. It's just that I always considered the men and women of the bible to be on a level so far removed from average that I should never expect to experience God in any way close to what they did. Who strolls up to a 10 ft giant at the age of 17 and confidently says, "I'm going to kill you and take your head off...TODAY"? WHO DOES THAT?! lol!
And who says, "Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord! The enemy that you see today shall be no more", and THEN proceeds to part an entire sea?! WHO DOES THAT?!
So please bear with me. I love the bible. I love the Word. I believe every word to be true.
I've just had a hard time relating to those in the bible as "average".
Maybe that's in part because few preachers in my lifetime ever presented those same individuals as real. I understand that those who recorded the acts of God and the testimony of the saints were more concerned with documenting the awesome power of God. But I believe the church of TODAY needs to turn that documentation into something that can be believed. Rarely does anyone take a text and say, "How do you think that felt?" Because of that disconnect, I believe that many of us (myself included) have found the bible to be not much more than a storybook.
However, it is so much more.
It is a totally different experience reading the bible at 33 years of age than it was as a 7 yr old or even a 20 year old. I have a lot more life under my belt and a lot more colors to paint with on my palette. What I see now when I read the Word of God is not just a tribute to heroes and heroins. What I see now is how God time and time again, interrupted the mundane routine of average men and women and propelled them head first into their destinies.
We see the ascension of King David to power. But we don't fully appreciate the over 20 year gap between his being anointed as King and his actual ascension to that throne. The bible is full of hidden truths and those truths can be unearthed by those willing to dig.
The superheros in the bible we read were not overnight successes. Often they went years, even DECADES before God spoke to them and before anything He ever promised manifested.
DECADES.
So while you're crying into your cup of Starbucks or freshly fluffed and folded laundry, chew on that little revelation.
Not to long ago, while contemplating my life, the Holy Spirit whispered something to me. It's tough reading timelines and facebook statuses sometimes. We can be real here! Folks appear to be doing so much, and excelling so far. And there you are, little ol mundane YOU. I've never been to Spain or France. I've never left the East Coast. Never been on a plane. I'm literally proud of myself for being able to handle Atlanta traffic alone. I know people who would NEVER drive in Atlanta. Seriously.
I'm not making any major moves, nothing particularly exciting going on in my world; Just toys, juice pouches, temper tantrums, laundry, crayon marks on white walls and an SUV motoring up and down the same stretch of 3.5 miles a day.
But God spoke to me and told me, "I am the Lord of the Mundane".
That means that He doesn't need or require me to make something happen. Just because I am faithfully attending to what appears to be mundane and insignificant does not mean that I will escape His plan and purpose for my life. I don't have to be a mountain climber to one day find myself on a summit.
That's His job.
The impossible belongs to Him.
The mundane belongs to me.
As long as I do what He's given me to do faithfully, He will make sure that every blessing He's guaranteed will overtake me.
In order for something to overtake me, it has to know where I am. The blessing knows when I'll be at Wal-Mart, on my way to get gas, buying clothes at Target or stopping by Staples for office supplies.
He doesn't need a big event to create one in my life.
He is Lord of the Mundane.
In DUE SEASON, we all shall reap.
Plug up that vacuum cleaner, set the wash cycle, make those lunches and head on into the office. Whatever it is that you do, I hope this helps you to do it with a little more strength and a little more encouragement. As heroic and successful as the men and women in the bible are, they didn't start out that way. Somewhere, while attending to their mundane affairs, God met them and changed their destinies.
You will be more if you'll be faithful.
He's Lord of everything, including your mundane life.