How to Be at Peace with an Ordinary Life

Tish Harrison Warren set out to write a book about

the Christian life, and she made a strange choice about where to

start. She began with waking up and making the bed. The most

comfortable minutes of the day, the stuff you do half-asleep

before the coffee kicks in. Beneath that mundane start to

the day, there's a question a lot of us live with. She looked

at her own days full of dishes and the same tasks on repeat,

and she wondered where God was in any of it.

We'll come back to what she found there, but first...

Welcome to Daily Devotions for Busy Lives. I'm Bart Leger. Let

me tell you what most of my weeks look like. I study, and I

write sermons. Some afternoons, I drive across town to check on

somebody who's sick. That's the job. There's no crowd anywhere

in it, and nobody's filming any of it. For a long stretch, I

treated those low-key weeks as the in-between parts. The stuff

you get through on the way to Sunday. And I've come around on

that. Those are the pastorate. The rest is the icing on the

cake. A lot of Christians have picked up a message from the

culture without meaning to. A meaningful life has to be big. A

platform and a story people want to hear. And there's the week in

front of you. You get up and went to work. You made supper,

helped somebody with homework. Most people's lives are made up

of small things. Raising children and staying married for

a few decades. And somewhere in there, a thought shows up. Is

this all there is? You would never say it out loud in a small

group, but you might think about it anyway. Paul wrote something

to the Thessalonians that I believe cuts straight across all

that. 1 Thessalonians 4, 11 and 12. Make it your goal to live a

quiet life, minding your own business and working with your

hands, just as we instructed you before. Then, people who are not

believers will respect the way you live, and you will not need

to depend on others. Look at the verb he leads with. Make it your

goal. Some translations render it aspire. That's an ambition

word, the kind you expect in front of something impressive.

And Paul aims it at a life nobody's going to write about.

He's telling them to go after it on purpose. Then, he gets

specific. He says, mind your own business, work with your hands.

Minding your own business asks more of you than it sounds like.

Paul wrote that in a world already crowded with

self-promotion. Roman culture ran on patronage and public

reputation. And, who knew your name and who spoke well of you

in public. He was telling Christians in that world to step

out of the competition for it. Working with your hands was the

other half. And, in that setting, manual labor was looked down on.

Paul tells them to go do it anyway and earn their way. Then,

look at the two results he names. Outsiders will respect the way

you live. And, you won't have to lean on anybody to get by.

Paul's picture of a life well lived. It's a person who does

his own work and earns the regard of neighbors who don't

share his faith, even. You can start building that this week.

You don't need anybody's permission or a big following.

The ordinary life you have is what God entrusted to you and

he's at work in the middle of it. The dishes and the drive to work

are where most of your life with him is going to happen. Because

that's where most of your life is. And, here's what she found.

The ordinary was the place where God had chosen to meet her all

along. Warren came to see the small routines as a kind of

training, the way a runner logs unglamorous miles, shaping her

into the person she was becoming. She called the book, Liturgy of

the Ordinary. And, its argument is simple. Most of your life

with God happens off any stage, in the dishes and the drive to

work. And, he's right there in it. Those hours are the life

itself. Look at where she chose to start that book. Making the

bed. She could have opened with a conversion story or a crisis.

And, she opened with a chore. And, what she found in it was

what Paul was pointing at. The forming happens in the

repetitions. A runner logs miles nobody claps for. And, the miles

are what makes the runner. Here's today's challenge. Pick

one ordinary thing you'll do today, and do it as though God

is in the room. Because, He is. Wash the dishes without reaching

for your phone. Or, drive to work with the radio off and tell

God what's on your mind. Then, do one more thing. Say, thank

you for one ordinary piece of your life you've been treating

as a filler. The job or the person across the table from you.

Father, thank you for ordinary days. And, thank you for being

in them. You've absorbed a lot of noise about what makes a life

count. And, some of us have been measuring ours against a

standard you never set. Forgive us for that, and settle us into

the lives you gave us. Teach us to aim at the life Paul

described. And, meet us in the dishes in the middle of the week

nobody will remember. In Jesus' name, amen. This podcast runs on

the generosity of listeners just like you. If Daily Devotions for

Busy Lives has encouraged you, would you consider supporting it

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Every contribution helps keeps these devotions coming every

week. You can give at dailydevotionsforbusylives.com

slash support. Thank you so much. And, thanks for joining me on

Daily Devotions for Busy Lives. Remember, the ordinary life you

have is the one God entrusted to you, and He is in it. Go after

it on purpose. Come back next time for more encouragement to

help you live grounded in God's truth. Until then, God bless and

have a great day.