Another ordinary day passed.
Another day to get dressed, go to work, make dinner, and do the dishes. Also another day to chat with neighbors, meet a friend for coffee, and curl up in my warm bed at night.
But it’s also another day with no burning bush moments like Moses, no Damascus Road experiences like Paul, and certainly no angels like Mary’s Gabriel declaring I had found great favor with the Lord. Again.
My ordinary days make me feel inadequate, unworthy. Where are the profound and miraculous moments in my life?
The mantra of the day suggests I ought to have tweetable thoughts throughout the day, sprinkled with Facebook-worthy posts of witty text message screenshots, along with at least one Instagram photo of my food (even if it’s a failed Pinterest attempt) or my outfit-while-standing-with-hand-on-hip-and-leg-slightly-bent.
Can I please have a miracle today to share? If not, at least one experience (or conversation) offering profound insight? I should be unearthing deep and eternal truths. When in reality, it’s just another day.
Ordinary or Bravery?
We make ourselves crazy when we feel like we have to “be brave and do something courageous” everyday, or face the pressure of “make today the first day of the rest of my life” everyday, or “be the change you want to see in the world” every moment. It’s exhausting.
Sometimes, Friends, the bravest thing we can do is to repeat yesterday. The ordinary. One day at a time.
When we look for momentous events daily in our friendships, parenting, job, marriage, and even faith, we set the stage for disappointment. Contentment remains unreachable when the search for adrenaline rush moments becomes our source of significance and fulfillment.
Mary had a most incredible encounter with the angel Gabriel, then thirty years of ordinary days.
Moses experienced God in the burning bush. then decades followed gathering morning manna, packing, and unpacking daily.
Perseverance may be the bravest thing you and I do today.* In this everyday life, we lean into the faithfulness of our Lord. His mercies are truly new every morning (Lamentations 3:22-23). In Him alone, we reside day by day. Each decision, small as it may be, is an opportunity to pause and to pray for guidance. Listen. Each pause inches us another step toward maturity.
We, then, realize how today is actually ever so slightly different than yesterday. It’s another day of memories with a child. Another opportunity to talk with a neighbor. Another moment for a skill to progress. The “anothers” add up and it’s been another day. And we are not the same person at the end of the day because of our new “anothers.” That is real.
Ordinary. Repeat for bravery embodied.
I didn’t book a trip to Bora Bora today, nor did I quit my job to earn income at home, nor did I commit to an all-new-me diet and exercise plan. It was a day of ordinary anothers. Praise God for another day. Indeed, He is the same yesterday and today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8).
Your Turn
How will you live with contentment today?
How will the path of ordinary perseverance lead you toward spiritual growth?
*Unless you are in an abusive situation. If this is you, may this be the day you bravely reach out for help.
Posted by Sharon R Hoover.
Dear Sharon, I want to agree with you and disagree with you in the same breath! The discipline of daily responsibilities needs a goal, or goals, beyond the obvious ones. A sense of mission can apply to daily service but it helps to have a purpose in a larger mission, as well. You, certainly, are the woman who exemplifies both those emphases! When the daily calls on one’s resources are very challenging, for example, in under-employment or impoverishment, the pain of the daily routines can grind one’s optimism into dust particles unless a vision or sense of mission or calling exists to fuel hope for the journey. “Without a vision the people perish.” I think that vision is more important the harder one’s circumstances, which is why I wait in prayer for the vision that points the way to the next step and the next. God acts even in the most discouraging of times–at least, He keeps on proving that to me. While I continue to work at the overwhelming tasks at hand, nibbling away at the mountains of necessary work, a clarion call, sometimes faint, sometimes piercing, reaches me through the drudgery to remind me I am on a world mission of His glorious intent.
So true, Laurna! The tension between goal setting and contentment is real. Hopefully, we find joy along the journey even when the days seem ordinary and uneventful. We’ll celebrate the incremental progress toward goals based on God’s timing and not the temporal appreciation by social circles and social media.