The upside-down life.

I decide to make a little floral arrangement for my kitchen table the other day, and went outside, shears in hand, to forage for flowers. I found roses, pansies, butterfly bush and few filler flowers, but I needed another tall green for my arrangement. I decide to use a patch of overgrown oregano that had crept farther than I had intended for it.  I arranged it all in a little glass, a strange assortment to be sure, and certainly nothing to write home about. Not an arrangement a florist would choose, or that would grace the cover of any magazine. But it worked. The oregano helped to add beauty to the space and spoke of someone caring, and of Creator’s glory.

It’s a mystery, isn’t it, how our little actions, the small and insignificant tasks of life, like adding flowers and oregano to the table, amounts to anything?

It doesn’t make sense to us. It might even seem silly or useless to others, these little acts of love offered up to God like loaves and fish. And somehow, because it’s done with love for Him and for others, it makes a positive difference.

It’s counter-intuitive, offering love’s labors–our small works, our flowers and herbs– to God. We assume He wants big things: seminars, outreach, productions. We think He’s impressed with numbers and crowds. We hesitate to call our small work worthwhile at all. Maybe your offering would never grace the cover of Christianity Today or any major newspaper. Maybe your offering is a meal delivered to a new mother, a visit to a shut-in, giving someone a ride, a card sent to a newly widowed woman, cupcakes delivered up to bring someone else joy, or sitting with a sobbing friend. Friend, someone needed to do it and you were the ordained person.

The world tells us that in order to do big things, we have to do extraordinary things. We should be superwoman, and Pinterest mom. We should elbow our way to center stage. That in order to really be fulfilled, you have to chase your dreams.

I can tell you right now that I never dreamed of washing dishes, folding laundry,  or sitting up nights with sick children.

But God.

His ways are upside-down. Or actually, they are right side up but we’re so mixed up that they seem counter-intuitive.

When you follow God, He sets your value system right side up and changes your perspective and desires.

He teaches us that what He really wants is for us to follow Him intently, and to seek Him passionately. To abide and commune with Him. He wants our heart.

And He teaches us that to really gain in this life, we must lose our life.

He says that godliness with contentment is where we’ll truly find great gain.

That in order to be fulfilled, we need to be filled with love for Him first and most.

God says to offer up your life to Him and release your clenched-fist grip on this life, and trust with hands wide open in order to receive His best.

Today I’m thankful that we have the sort of God who takes our works–

the repetitive moments of motherhood,

the work that is undone before it’s accomplished,

the unseen work of ministry,

the ordinary, the unlovely, the undesirable jobs we all have to perform,

the bouquets of roses and oregano,

and accepts them as worship.

And friend, your little work, that kind word, that gift of time, that listening ear, or physical food, it’s not small. It’s actually the stuff that cultures and societies need more than ever right now. Don’t be weary or discouraged. Your kindness may be the only kindness someone else receives today. And that is huge.

What work seems small in your eyes today? How can you see God’s hand in all of it and offer it to Him as worship?

Some verses/quotes to meditate on as you go about your day:

 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Col. 3:1-3

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.  Romans 12:1,2

“Nothing teaches us about the preciousness of the Creator as much as when we learn the emptiness of everything else.” Charles Spurgeon

“The “show business,” which is so incorporated into our view of Christian work today, has caused us to drift far from Our Lord’s conception of discipleship. It is instilled in us to think that we have to do exceptional things for God; we have not. We have to be exceptional in ordinary things, to be holy in mean streets, among mean people, surrounded by sordid sinners. That is not learned in five minutes.”
― Oswald Chambers