The Ministry of the Mundane: Faithful Living When The Days Feel Unimportant

Life is compiled in the mundane moments. Much of our time is claimed by tasks we don’t even remember in days to come. Sleeping. Eating. Bathing. These are the tasks that allow us to maintain our life. But rarely are they note-worthy.

We feel the absence of the mundane. We enjoy the occasional sparks that we remember for years to come but the daily, sustaining elements of our lives are often forgettable.

It’s hard to accept ordinary, mundane things.

We want life to be dramatic. We want to be remembered.

We want to be Esthers, bursting into the throne room and saving the day. But we forgot that what made Esther memorable was only a moment, her character was forged in the mundane.

My life can be boring, My days aren’t spent in an exciting manner but simply spent washing dishes that will be dirtied again at the next meal, folding clothes that will soon be mussed, and doing work that I will forget doing a year from now. Maybe even a month from now.

Like the opening montage of a movie, my days play out, waiting for the excitement to begin, my life plays out over and over.

But in the end, I don’t think it is those burst of excitement, but the mundane bits of life that define who we are.

Anyone can show up and pull everything together for one day. It is true character to over and over again live out your daily tasks with love.

Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. – Colossians 3:17, ESV

Each and every task our hands are occupied with, each and every word that passes through our lips can be offered up to our Maker.

Nothing is meaningless, but even the mundane is infused with eternity when offered up in the name of Jesus. 

We never know the ripple effect our actions will have. Our kind words may be the salve that soothes a soul wounded and broken. Hospitality extended to a stranger may be offered up to an angel. A cup of water given to one in need can be extended as to Christ Himself.

The reach of our daily tasks extends beyond what our eyes can see. To lose heart because of the limits of our sight would be foolish. Our hope is anchored, not in what is seen, but what is unseen. Likewise, our words and deeds extend beyond what we could possibly know.

But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you,  so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one. 1 Thessalonians 4:10-12, ESV

Quiet lives. That was the charge given to the Early Church. Their call wasn’t to make big, flashy, public statements but to conduct their lives in the quiet, holy way.

Because mundane days can add up to meaningful lives. 

We might not remember the mundane work we do, but it is in those daily, repetitive habits that we develop enduring character. It reaches beyond the tips of our fingers as we hand our work off to the Holy Spirit.

There is holy dignity in keeping a home to welcome others in His name. There is something beautiful loving those who see us in the day in and day out instead of simply loving when we think others will notice.

Mundane tasks are the tasks of life. So let’s live that life worthy of the calling placed on it. We have been purchased by the precious blood of Christ. Let us use our every breath, remarkable or unremarkable, in honor of the one whose last breath sealed the grave and redeemed all things.

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