What do you expect when you wake up each day?
For some people, waking up to another day is no big deal.
- Same paralyzing problems.
- Same bad habits.
- Same negative attitude.
- Same procrastination.
What if you woke up to more?
What if you believed that the living God was active and moving right in the middle of the ordinary moments of your day?
In David Rohrer’s fine book The Sacred Wilderness of Pastoral Ministry (p. 41), he discusses the ministry of John the Baptist and has some very fine comments about a person’s calling. The context here is congregational ministry, but I think his point might be helpful to most anyone who is a Jesus-follower.
The prophetic tradition points us in a direction where we see our call not in terms of running the institutions we lead but in terms of inviting people to wake up to God. If we look at the call narratives for Isaiah and Jeremiah, it doesn’t take long to see that institutional reform is not the thing that is primarily on God’s mind. What is on God’s mind is that the people who have fallen asleep might have a messenger who would invite them to wake up out of their religious slumber and pay attention to the truth that the living God was in their midst.
In order for me to practice this, I have to intentionally begin my day remembering this reality. Otherwise, I simply wake up to another ordinary day and allow it to be shaped by my attitude, my habits, and my anxiety.
So here is how I would like to live today. Perhaps this will be helpful to you as well.
- Today, I want to move through my day believing that God is living and active in the ordinary moments.
- Today, I want to stay awake. I don’t want to doze off in my religious slumber and totally miss what God will be doing today.
- Today, I want to pay attention. I want to look for the gracious hand of God instead focusing on what is lacking, what is wrong, and what is inadequate.
Maybe you would like to join me in this pursuit. Don’t worry about having it all together. Don’t worry about whether or not you will maintain this perspective throughout the day.
Just start!
Question:
Which one of these three challenges, each of which begins with the word “Today,” do you need to remember today?
This article reminded me of one of those obscure little but big verses in Zechariah 4:10, “Who despises the day of small things? Men will rejoice when they see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubabbel.” We look for big events and miss the joy of the small ones. God is at work on me everday even in the routine and ordinary things of life. Thanks Jim for sharing this resource.
Charles, thanks for this verse. You are right. So often we miss the joy of seemingly small events and moments.