"Sometimes we are fresh for a prayer meeting but not fresh for cleaning boots!" (Oswald Chambers)
My mentor of many years intentionally spoke to being faithful in such mundane tasks of life as cleaning boots, washing dishes. The thing is, though, if we have the means, it is often these mundane tasks of life that we first offer up to another to accomplish for us. I’ll pay you to clean my house, to wash my car, to do my laundry. And now, even, I’ll pay you to do my shopping and deliver it to my door.
I’ll be faithful in finding a way out. Faithful to focus my efforts on exciting and energizing work. Work that develops solutions to reduce inefficiencies, that frees me up to escape boring, unproductive and dull time-consuming tasks.
Yet, at the very core, dullness and boredom are of this mundane, earthly world. They are of this world just as we are of this world where we live and breathe today. We can strive to "progress" further as we continue the exciting work of developing solutions to improve our state, but what is it that we are striving to accomplish? Are we striving to eradicate all that is not stimulating and exciting? All that does not peak our interest and our personal passions? Are we working to escape the very world in which we live, striving for a balm to soothe the weariness, dullness and difficulty that follows on the coattails of mundane duty?
Yes. We often are.
Exciting and stimulating work innately fuels freshness. Freshness is vitalizing, so we seek out the exciting and the stimulating to remain fresh, to remain energized. This kind of work effectually exists as a power source that sustains our strength to live fresh and energized and satisfied lives.
But we will always have our boots.
We live in this world even as we continuously strive to improve it - to progress it. And while we strive after change, pursuing things that fuel us with power and energy and life, we cannot change the very temporal and imperfect nature of the thing itself, and of us. No matter our efforts, even spiritual ones, we have our boots. And cleaning boots lacks any sort of innate fuel for freshness and energy. It's pretty powerless.
It's also pretty revealing. We were made to clean boots, just as we were made to develop and create.
We cannot be comprehensively fueled by exciting and stimulating work. It serves us well until the reality of the nature of this place can no longer be denied. Reality is that work isn't always exciting. Life is actually quite mundane. How often are our efforts an escape, a running from this life, lacking power to face it. Looking for power to face it.
Looking for that power in work, because work is an obvious and often culturally acceptable source of power for us. When work fails, we must find our fuel in another culturally or not so culturally acceptable substitute; we need fuel. Whatever we seek, it is our fuel for living. And it can become not only power for us, but powerful over us. Our very escape, then, can lead us to captivity.
What if we weren’t made only to “progress” and escape this existence. What if the innate power that we find in self-satisfying stimulation also innately deceives us to believe such power is what we were made for? What if we were made for more? And what if we were made to remain faithful in the mundane tasks of life. And find that we have power here. Power that comes not from ourselves or our circumstances.
Would we even want it? Really. Would we desire it enough that we would put ourselves aside to receive it? That we would put aside our plans, our dreams, our ideas. That we would put aside our stimulating, energizing, yet observably imperfect power source.
And would we put on another? Depend on another. Trust in another? Rely on a source of power that is unfailing, not of this world. One which requires faith.
According to the Bible, we were made for more. We were for God, by God to be with this good and sovereign God forever. We were made for relationship and dependence. The exciting, stimulating and self-soothing opportunity of placing our faith in our ability to solve the problems of the world proves to fall short of comprehensively, of perfectly, meeting our needs for freshness and power and life. Reality is that work isn't always exciting. Life is actually quite mundane. In fact, it is quite uncertain and uncontrollable. This world in which we live is broken by sin- we are broken by sin - only to be restored by the sinless one who made it in the first place. Jesus made a way to heal us of our brokenness and we are made to place our faith in His work, not ours. Through faith in Jesus, relationship with Jesus, we are fueled by a power that is the farthest thing from mundane and temporal, but rather, one which is eternal and unfailing. We ourselves, as we believe Him, are fueled amazingly by the same power that raised Jesus from the grave, defeating death, escaping the grasp of this world, of this mundane existence. This is the power that we were made to turn to face this life, to escape this place. Jesus. He makes a way for us to remain faithful and fresh and at rest, in both the stimulating, ongoing work of development and in the earthly necessity of cleaning our boots.
What power source are you pursuing? For what do you strive? Is it a pursuit of independent escape that might eventually lead to captivity or is it a pursuit of dependent belief, learning to put aside yourself and to put on Jesus, leading to ultimate freedom?
Consider Jesus today. Will you believe and by faith find in Him a friend and a freshness and power and life and rest, even in difficult and dutiful living? Or will you turn again to that which might culturally and temporarily, and deceptively, meet your needs?
It’s an important question for us all to consider.
For further thought, here is some of what God's Word has to say about this:
Ephesians 1:15-23, New Living Translation
"15 Ever since I first heard of your strong faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for God’s people everywhere, 16 I have not stopped thanking God for you. I pray for you constantly, 17 asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and insight so that you might grow in your knowledge of God. 18 I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called—his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance.
19 I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power 20 that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms. 21 Now he is far above any ruler or authority or power or leader or anything else—not only in this world but also in the world to come. 22 God has put all things under the authority of Christ and has made him head over all things for the benefit of the church. 23 And the church is his body; it is made full and complete by Christ, who fills all things everywhere with himself."
Hebrews 4:3a and 11a
“For we who have believed enter that rest…Let us therefore strive to enter that rest.”
And Nehemiah 8:10b
"for the joy of the Lord is your strength."
© Copyright Jill Williams, 2019. All Rights Reserved.
Footnotes:
My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers, January 20, 2018.