My time in Savannah so far has been filled to the brim with new experiences, new restaurants, new places, and even seeing a couple of celebrities! I am in awe of all that I have had the blessing of doing over the past several weeks. However, sometimes it hasn’t been all that glamorous. Though my personality drives me to desire to go and do and never stop every second of the day, God is continuing to remind me that there is surely beauty in it all- from the mundane to the hilltop moments.
Work-wise, this week has consisted of sorting through donated clothes at the store, a meeting, and taking one of our sweet residents to the dentist’s office. Though it doesn’t rank so highly on the glamour scale, I am learning that it certainly brings glory to God anyway.
God is a personal God. He knows our innermost being and desires to be present in every detail of our lives. That’s why when I happened to look up the definition of mundane that I was blown away.
I expected the first definition. That was the one I had in mind when I began this post, but the second one… that’s what really hit me. This earth we walk on is itself mundane, but our God chose to come to earth as a man and walk on it anyway. And “we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15) Jesus came to earth and experienced everything we have and will experience as He turned that second definition on its head. He himself made earth a spiritual place as He walked on it fully God and fully man. He knows the roller coaster that we often go through- our emotions, our situations, our relationships. Our ups and downs and our highs and lows are nothing new to Him. However, it was in those highs and those lows that He proved Himself to be so perfect and holy.
“Who has believed what he has heard from us?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
For he grew up before him like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
and no beauty that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by men;
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.” Isaiah 53:1-6
As Jesus walked on the earth, He did not look like the rest of the world. It is not because He performed magic tricks with pizazz or looked like a movie star though. As we know, He did not stand out for His looks but rather for His extravagant love and power and healing and selflessness flowing through and from Him. His ways were and always will be quite opposite from how we are told to act. Therefore, we will never find our satisfaction in the most likes on Instagram, meeting a celebrity, or some other form of 15 minutes of fame. Our hearts were only meant to be fully satisfied by following after the God Who is the Alpha and Omega, from everlasting to everlasting. The One Who was, and is, and is to come. All else will fade away, “but the word of our God will stand forever.” (Isaiah 40:8)
So, even in the “normal” moments, our dedication and perseverance in following His will proves so much more rewarding and fulfilling. The highs of our relationships with God often prove to be the most memorable, but we must also remember that He is constant. In our wondering and in the ebbs and flows of everyday life, He reminds us to simply come be with Him, to rest in His presence in the moments of the in-between and the routine too. He always has something new to teach me, if I would just sit and listen, if all that I am would “wait quietly before my God.” (Psalm 62:5)
Whether I’m folding clothes or praying over the health of a baby as he or she’s growing in the womb, God is there. He always has been, always will be, and it is because of that, that our mundane moments turn out to be quite sacred and beautiful after all.
// brianna in savannah // 