A lesson I’ve learned from failure.
I slump into the corner of the couch, a heap of exhaustion and rattled nerves, halfheartedly crack open my Bible and try to get comfortable. My back is sore from the strain of the day.
I want to be alone after tending to others. I need to “take in” after giving out all day. I’m all wrong inside, and I know it. I approach my Bible like a vending machine, picking and choosing, getting my “fix” with my favorite selections, although my intellectual side scolds me. I don’t even care. I’m too exhausted to care. I just need something.
On the days when I lose it with the kids,
the days when nothing went right,
those days,
right there in the midst of all the internal upheaval and frustration,
is when I need a fresh look at Christ. I need to remember Him.
I need to see His gentleness as He deals with people who want, want, want. Needy people, following Him in crowds, asking favors.
I need to see His meekness as people use Him for miracles, and crowd His door at all hours of the night, when He is tired.
I need to see His compassion for the sick, that never failed to give a word of encouragement.
I need to see His hospitality as He stops to offer living water to an outcast Samaritan woman who was looking for love in all the wrong places.
I need to see His generosity and goodness as He feeds the hungry multitudes, the Son of God stooping to serve them bread and fish.
What I need is to see how pathetically short my irritation and impatience falls, when compared to His goodness.
How can I claim to be working for God’s glory, when I allow small irritations to annoy me as if the people I’m called to serve are an inconvenience?
In the mundane, where you and I live every day, we can’t afford to miss the Savior.
We can’t miss the fact that all the work we do is sacred. There are no categories: important, non-important; spiritual, non-spiritual.
Washing dishes, chopping vegetables, making meals, setting tables, changing sheets, giving out band-aids, comforting a crying child, rocking a fussy baby, cleaning bathrooms, doing errands for a shut in, talking to the lonely, delivering meals, practicing hospitality,
these are the holy tasks, ordained for you today. They are tasks to be done “as unto the Lord.”
They may not be convenient, and they will cost you something, yes, but after all,
isn’t all of our work a sacrifice to God, our reasonable service?
Work is worship. Let that sink in, and it will change you.
That dramatic teen who you were tempted to snap at because you can’t deal with the drama for one more minute? Your work is worship.
That child who didn’t do their work again? Forgot this, forgot that? I’m so tired of the excuses that I could scream, and I remember this…
My work,
this calling of motherhood, wife, friend, teacher, mentor, neighbor,
THIS work is worship.
Some days I need to repent because I’ve despised the work the Lord gave to me.
Some days I need to repent because I’ve despised the fact that the work was a sacrifice, and not on my terms, not in my timing, and not with my results.
On days when I’m resenting the mundane, I desperately need to remember that Jesus picked up the rag and basin and chose menial work, washing dusty feet. He cooked fish for his disciples. He fed multitudes. He ministered to the sick. He sat and taught friends, and did life with them. He took the lash and nail for my impatience and anger with my family at that very moment, and now has called me His child, and loves me despite my selfishness, and pulls me into His inner circle and treats me as though I’ve never sinned against Him at all.
This is the example I’m called to follow, and this is the love that I am supposed to share, especially in the midst of my sacred mundane.
Hi! I read your blog post on the overcomer blog and loved what you talked about so I headed over here! This is SUCH a good reminder- I have 3 small children and sometimes the everyday tasks can be exhausting and when the “witching hour” comes I am just DONE. But I think if I can see it as Gods work and not my own it will change the way I see every task big and small. Our children, our house, our husbands are all very big works of the Lord that He has entrusted us with. Thank you for giving me a new perspective and reminding me that every single thing we do is to the glory of God!
Oh, I’m so glad! Thanks for stopping by! God bless you.
Jesus treats us as if we’ve never sinned against him. What blessed assurance we have that God loves us, Sarah. Thank you.
Work is worship. That is a great thing to write in the palm of my hand! Easy to remember….and hopefully it will remind me to make the right choice and worship in my work.
Yes, writing things down is mandatory for me, too…or else I forget! 🙂
Thank you Sarah. I needed to be reminded of this. I do appreciate the call to worship and that puts things in perspective.
You are welcome.
I love the honesty and the encouragement in this post, Sarah. We’ve all been there. We all have days like these. Thank you for the reminder that we can worship in all that we do, even when it doesn’t feel like it and especially when our attitudes are less than desirable.