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wings
Life is mostly routine
Well, the euphoric New Year celebration is over. Now begins the daily living. I believe that our biggest challenges in life are not the major crises or even the great days of victory. It's the daily living.
It is the getting out of bed and beginning another day's journey that often causes us to stumble or to soar. That doesn't mean I don't recognize those days when it appears the whole world is crashing down on you. That doesn't mean you shouldn't enjoy, relish, and cherish those mountaintop moments.
It only means that life is lived between the mountains and the valleys. Life is mostly lived in the plain and routine places. And this is where most of us fail.
Some of us long for the mountains, where we become addicted to joy-filled experiences and euphoric feelings of success. Some of us have come to enjoy living in the valleys, where we like feeling blue and believe the whole world is against us.
Some of you have already figured out where I am going with this, because you already wrote your own life's ending rather than enjoying each moment as it unfolds. It's amazing how our life experiences influence our conclusions. However, the "X" factor for us should be our relationship with the Living Lord. We should seek to encounter, live, and view the world through the eyes of Jesus. Jesus was able to see God at work, even in the routine of life. He saw God breaking in on those places where he had preconceived notions.
Do you remember Jesus' encounter with the woman who asked him to heal her daughter? Listen to the answer from Jesus: I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Many seek to explain away Jesus' reluctance to give this woman any of his time. But as the Scripture unfolds, this episode shows us a Jesus who was open to change, even in his own prescribed way of thinking about his ministry.
Listen to the conclusion of the encounter: Then she came and worshipped him, saying, "Lord, help me!" But he answered and said, "It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs." And she said, "True, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters' tables." Then Jesus answered and said to her, "O woman, how great is your faith. Let it be to you as you desire." And her daughter was healed from that very hour.
If Jesus changed his perception of Gentiles, why can't we change? If you are prone to looking for the next great event, the next great opportunity, the next great breakthrough, while disdaining the ordinary existence of your life, then may you take the routine and see it as your next great event. May you take the disappointment and see it as your next great opportunity. And if you are prone to think the world is against you and only gives you lemons, then may you begin to see that you have the beginning ingredients of lemonade.
The one thing I can predict about this year is that it will be filled with more routine assignments than great moments. But because we serve a Living Lord who is with us, there exists the strong possibility that we can see routine burst forth with joy, celebration, and the abundant life Christ comes to give.
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Bishop James Swanson
Resident Bishop
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