The Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. (Josh. 1:9)
All of us fall prey to the idea that God is disconnected from our daily (mis)adventures. We get caught up in the daily mundane, but fail to see God in it. We formalize disciplines like prayer and Scripture reading, and forget that God is also drawing us into his presence everywhere we go. We go to God’s house on Sundays hoping to meet him there, but let the fact that he lives in us (all the time) slip our minds.
Though we don’t always have the eyes to see it, we live in a sacramental world. As much as our God is a God of extraordinary actions and mighty deeds, he often does his best work with ordinary things: bread and cup, water and wine, flesh and blood. Even the disciples with whom Jesus surrounded himself were—based on the cultural standards of the time—men of inconsequence.
Changing diapers, scraping ice off the windshield, tucking the kids into bed, talking with a coworker, visiting a hospital room, having a hard conversation with a friend—these moments are laden with hidden holiness, waiting to be discovered. If we learn from Joshua, we can see that in times of transition and desolation, unworthiness or grief, war or peace, we are called to see a world laden with divine possibilities.
Notice where holiness may be hiding in ordinary things.
Ethan Linder is the college, young adult, and connections pastor at College Wesleyan Church in Marion, Indiana, where he resides with his wife and son. Ethan enjoys running, reading, and roasting coffee.
© 2020 Wesleyan Publishing House. Reprinted from Light from the Word. Used by permission.
Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®.
