Home and Small Things
It’s Monday morning and there is a devotional to finish. As you read, your mind drifts to the piles of work waiting for you in the office and you glaze over the paragraph you just read for a third time. The job that was supposed to launch you into “more” has taken on an unexpected drudgery and simply pays the rent or mortgage. It seems the more you make, the more you spend, and the more you spend, the more you work. An image of a rat on a wheel comes to mind.
When work is done for the day and task masters are satisfied, all you want to do is go home, close the blinds, kick back in your favorite chair, and hide from the demands of life. Free from the demands of job, free from the demands of commute, free from the demands of housework, expectations, and screaming kids - free from the demands of all of it. Peace and quiet, nestled in with your favorite creature comforts - a bowl of popcorn, a cold beer or glass of wine, and a good movie. No trespassers, no solicitors, no “company,” no nothing. Peace and quiet and Netflix (or a good book). The sanctuary of home.
For the other half, life is never-ending household chores. More laundry to do, lunches to make, homework to supervise, sinks to scour, and rugs to vacuum. This is the ordinary of domestic life - or in most cases - the ordinary of a wife who also works to support a two-income family. And after dinner dishes are done, baths are taken and butts are powdered, all you want to do is go “out” - somewhere else - anywhere else - as long as the destination is outside the four walls of this home. Need to go somewhere new - somewhere fun - somewhere I deserve to go because I work so hard. The sanctuary of “elsewhere.”
It’s just another ordinary Monday.
Our homes slide on a scale between refuge and incarceration. For some, it’s the only place we can go where someone isn’t bossing us around. For others, it’s the natural habitat of “nothing new.” But the truth is, our homes have morphed into exactly what we think they should be: a refuge from the rat race, a source of the rat race, or a bipolar home somewhere in the midst of the rat race.
And before you know it, years have passed. The citadel we call home hasn’t seen a friend in years, much less a neighbor or a stranger. We have no room at the inn for others (unless it is scheduled and approved). We “shelter in place” from the world, listen to the same playlists, watch the same television shows, eat the same meals, sit in the same chairs, day-after-day, season-after-season. When we venture out, we visit the same restaurants, frequent the same theaters, jog the same trails, shop at the same stores, drive the same commute, and see the same people. This is “the ordinary.”
The four walls of our home presently serve the same ordinary folks doing the same ordinary things in the same ordinary neighborhoods. Mondays are just like every other ordinary Monday. And our ordinary homes are just like every other ordinary home. This is “the ordinary.”
Within the heart of believers rejoicing over a quiet evening at home - or screaming like a kid running from school on the first day of summer - all of us have a flicker of hope that somehow, some way, we will be used in a significant way to be a part of the plan of God.
And while hope is there, hope is also drowning in the ordinary of life. We hope to contribute, yes, but don’t actually believe we’ll actually contribute because - realistically - when would we even have the time to do so? The ordinary is the necessities of life and the ordinary demands so much. There isn’t much time to impact the world for God on school nights.
I recall once doing a regular Monday inspection of the grounds of an apartment community I managed. I encountered a maintenance worker who attended my church, so I struck up a conversation with him while we walked. While talking about a powerful church service the night before, a supply vendor walked up and listened as we talked. We quickly finish our discussion and returned our attention to business.
Two weeks later, I encountered the same supply vendor on another property. He asked if remembered him (I did) and he paused, looked at me squarely in the eye, and said, “I went to church last Sunday.”
“Really?” I said.
“Yeah, you and your maintenance guy sounded like you enjoyed it so much, I wanted to go and see it for myself,” he said. And then added, “First time since I was a kid.”
“Wow. What’d you think of it?” I asked.
“Fun. A lot of fun. Nice people. Going back,” he said.
As we continued to speak, I silently marveled at the Holy Spirit. Right words, right season, and right soil - all without me having a clue. And then it struck me,
Why do we think that God cannot use the things of our lives that are mundane, ordinary, and insignificant to reconcile people to Himself? Surely, nothing that happens during an ordinary Monday grounds inspection could be part of what God is doing to change the world, right?
Unfortunately, this perspective divorces the ordinary from our mission as Christians. We may rightly understand that we are to make disciples as part of the Great Commission given to us by the Lord in Matthew 28, but that mission has nothing to do with the ordinary of our lives.
It occurs to me that most of our life (especially the amount of time at home) IS ordinary. We cook, we clean, we rest, we walk to the dog with tunnel vision - rinse and repeat. Much of our life is done on autopilot. And quietly, unknowingly, we’ve come to believe that ordinary is insignificant.
Ordinary IS ordinary - nothing special and nothing significant. To be significant, we reason, it must be different, drastic, or extraordinary. It has to be something BIG and that simply doesn’t happen on ordinary Mondays, because ordinary Mondays aren’t big - they’re ordinary Mondays.
In the economy of God’s kingdom, however, big does not beget big. It’s precisely the opposite. A powerful message of Jesus’ life and teaching is that small begets big. God’s plan to redeem creation (big) is achieved through his incarnation as an impoverished infant (small). Jesus feeds thousands on a hillside (big) with just a few fish and loaves(small). Christ seeks to make disciples of all nations (big) and starts with a handful of fishermen (small). The whole loaf (big) is impacted by a little yeast (small) and even our kids know that Goliath (big) is defeated by David with a few stones (small).
This pattern is repeated in Jesus’ parable about the nature of his kingdom. He said,
“The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”
This affirms the counter-intuitive nature of God’s kingdom. In fact, the small, the ordinary, and the insignificant are the exact things God uses in his plan to change the world. Ordinary is NOT insignificant in the economy of God’s kingdom.
We live in a culture that continually ushers us toward belief in the exact opposite of Biblical truth. And we let it happen only to later realize that we’ve be led astray.
So, how do we reconcile our desire to be a part of God’s plan to change the world knowing we live in the ordinary?
If we, as the Church, are ever going to join our lives to God’s mission to change the world, we need to reclaim ALL of the ordinary pieces of living and dedicate them to be used in the gospel mission. We need to dedicate our homes, our commutes, our soccer practices, our conversations, and our meals to God’s mission. We have to view the ordinary of our lives as a canvass for God to paint a portrait of reconciliation of people to Him. We have to believe that small begets big and our homes must become a resource we willingly surrender to His plan.
If ordinary doesn’t mean insignificant, then even an ordinary Monday apartment grounds inspection is useful in the plan of God. Everything about our every day, ordinary, small-feeling lives is useful.
Our meals are useful.
Our hobbies are useful.
Our work is useful.
Our conversations are useful.
Our home is useful.
God can use it all in His redemptive plan.
Jesus said that in His kingdom, the smallest of all seeds will leave a lasting impact much larger than expected. In the same way, the “smallest” things in our lives - the ordinary days and meals and homes - can have a much larger impact than we’d ever imagine when tethered to gospel intentionality.
How do we reconcile our desire for impact for God’s plan with our failure to have any? Is there a Christian deficiency in us?
We also live in a culture that demands personal significance. You need to “make a name for yourself,” you need to “count,” you have to be the “best in your field,” and you need to “matter.” But the very culture that demands personal significance from each of us offers no mercy for failure. It is a voyeuristic culture that enjoys eviscerating those that fail to measure up because any form of failure, by default, is proof positive of a personal character defect. Fail to excel? LOL! What’s wrong with you?
What Christian, in their right mind, would willingly risk getting shot out of the saddle while trying to be significant for God?
I’m reminded of the Prodigal Son parable in Luke 15. If you recall, the older son rooted his identity in his faithful service to his father. “All these years I have served you,” he argued, but he didn’t get the recognition he expected.
The father responded to him by shifting the focus off service and upon what he valued most – his son’s presence. “You are always with me, and all I have is yours.” For the father, it was not disobedience or failure that mattered most. It was not obedience or service that mattered most. What mattered most to him was each son’s presence. The father loved each son regardless of what they did (or did not do) for him.
The truth is, God isn’t concerned that we accomplish anything significant FOR him, but - more importantly - that we learn to live every moment WITH him. Ephesians reminds us that God already prepared good works for each of us to walk in. Those good works will providentially accomplish exactly what they were intended to accomplish. Understanding this, we can release our absurd death-grip on our results, and simply share in the blessings of participation in His redemptive work - living a life WITH Him. Only a theology of a life with God, rather than for Him, allows us to do this.
Lastly, a paradigm shift takes place when we begin taking the focus off self and rightly placing it onto others. Opening our homes for the glory of God is no longer a singular act of welcome, but becomes a way, an orientation, that attends to the developing otherness within us. We want the opportunity to listen, understand, value, and honor others. We prize the presence of others, not credit for hospitality. And in doing so, we remain ready for God’s use - ready to welcome, ready to enter another’s world, ready to be vulnerable.
As Christians, we stand against the cultural trend to separate and isolate. We dismiss the whispers that tell us life is best spent fulfilling our own self-centered desires, cordoned off from others in the private fortresses of our homes. We choose to engage rather than unplug, open rather than close, initiate rather than sit by idly. In doing so, we believe loneliness is traded for community, comfort is surrendered to an eternal purpose, and apathy is left behind for a mission meaningful enough to give your life to.
If we all did this, who knows what could happen?
God will do what he promised. He will build His church and draw people to Himself through the ordinary faithfulness of believers.
Are you on board?