Being Grand... While Doing the Dishes

"Everybody wants to save the world but nobody wants to help mom with the dishes." -P.J. O'Rourke

There's something about ordinary, everyday work that gets hard. The day-in, day-out laundry-washing, dish-doing, work-going, homework-studying, family-crazy life. Sometimes I get up in the morning and by about lunchtime I'm exhausted with the mundane and it sounds more meaningful to do something big. You know, like serve in an orphanage in another country, teach 20 children, attend a prestigious university, or have a significant career. I want a big role that will be seen as successful and grand, one that I can announce and hear "oooh"s and "ahhh"s. I place normal life as somehow lower ranked than the "big" things, as if it's possible to do a grand thing without any ordinary, everyday work. I think I can save the world even if I'm unwilling to do the dishes.

Katie is a young woman living in Uganda, serving God and others. Talk about one of those grand, meaningful, big things, right? Surely her days are filled with only those amazing, immediately impactful things missionaries get to do. Well... her perspective isn't quite that way. (Have you read her blog? If not, check it out! It's encouraging and fabulous.) She writes:

People expect romantic, and all I have is a wildly disorganized bookshelf and dirty children shrieking with too-loud laughter. People expect that the days all hold life-saving medicine given to children on the brink of death and profound revelation and while some do, most consist more of peeling potatoes and wiping spills and listening to recited memory verses and biting my tongue as spaghetti sauce splatters everywhere and I light the pot holder on fire, again... 

I choke because my every day life begins too feel small compared to the expectation. And He breathes truth that a life is not made by lives saved or bellies fed or words written. To adore the one who created the Heavens and the Earth, to give thanks for who He is and all He has given, to worship and commune with Holy God, whispering in the quiet, clinging in the noise, believing in all circumstances – this is what makes a life large.The miracle is joy in Him in a day that goes all wrong. The miracle is standing in awe of abundance as I chop carrots and bathe babies and fold laundry. The miracle is a Son sent to die for the very likes of me and His ever-pursuing love for me still. 

It's true, I do expect some element of the romantic for someone called to be a missionary in Uganda. I imagine days filled with sharing the Gospel, grand influence in the life of a child, and no interruptions by the mundane, nitty gritty of life.

But as Katie wrote, God mixes the mundane right in with the metaphysical (thanks Nathan Clark George, for that wonderful sermon on the mundane and metaphysical!). The miracle isn't that God's calling draws us away from the mundane to experience a life more "spiritual." The amazing thing is that they go together perfectly--I can love my little brother by doing his laundry, serve God by studying hard as a student, and show God's kindness when talking to the checkout lady at Goodwill.

It's still amazing to me that people have the courage to serve in another country, or devote their lives to a specific cause. But what's even more amazing is that the most grand calling is the one that God gives--whether it's to be a Mom with 3 toddlers and babies running around like little Indians or a prolific author/speaker or an accountant or anything else. God doesn't rate our obedience to Him based on how big or little I think a situation looks. Faithfulness in "little" areas is just as important as the huge moments. 

God doesn't need to save me from the mundane parts of life to let me do something grand. Instead, I need to recognize the miracle of the everyday, and turn my eyes to God through it all. Could he call me to something different? Of course! But I can't expect to follow Him in something else if I'm unwilling to follow Him where I'm at.