The Mundane

The mundane...we face it almost everyday. The routines, the schedules, the to-do lists...things that never seem to go away.

Being newly married the things that many find "mundane" are very new and fresh and even exciting for me. I guess I am still in that honeymoon phase where sweeping the floor can be fun. However, the more I think about it, and the more I pray about it, the more I realize how much I need to guard against my heart attitude toward these "mundane" tasks. I am not too naive to recognize that after deep cleaning the bathroom for the hundreth time, I might, in my flesh, find it much more "mundane" and purposeless.

As I have been thinking about these very things, and the reality of the mundane in each of our lives, the Lord has put a couple verses on my heart over and over again: 1 Corinthians 15:58- "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord." AND "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, 24 since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving" (Colossians 3:23-24). These verses convict, exhort and encourage EVERY believer, that no matter what your callings are in life, to always be working as unto the Lord.

You see each of us, as His kids, have been given tasks to complete for His glory. Some of us have been called to full time ministry in the church, some of us to business jobs, some of us to classrooms, some of us to motherhood; whatever the calling, it is not by chance that you have been placed there. And moreover, it is not for yourself that you are working, but for the Lord. God sees every thing you do and more importantly He sees your heart behind it. You may do excellent work, but if you have become bitter with it in your heart, and have done it with a bad attitude, or to get some recognition or glory for yourself, you have not done what you have been called to do.

The mundane will never end this side of heaven. There will be tasks to get done, the 8-5 workday will stay the same, and the cleaning cycles will continue on; therefore we must guard against our heart's attitudes toward the mundane things in our life. We must continually refocus our hearts and the purposes we have in the callings we have been given. We must never forget that our labor is not in vain, never forget that God is sanctifying us through it all, and never forget that God is using us in it. We must fight for joy in the mundane, for the pursuit of excellence in all we do...never for our own glory, but for the glory of our great God!