Rewards in the Mundane

Genesis 6:9, 22 'Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God...Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him.'

Do you ever look at your life and feel ordinary? and like your daily tasks are boring, mundane?

As you put in the 9th load of laundry for the week or clean that little sticky face for the 75th time that week, do you start to feel just worn down?

Wondering when God is going to turn things a bit more exciting for you?

Its easy to look at the lives of some of our heroes of the faith and think - 'now they had exciting lives! They got to follow God into the most exciting times in history! They got to make history!'

Last night I was reading in our 'Our Journey' daily devotional and it talked about this subject.

The author, Doug Helmer looked at Noah. I'll paraphrase some of what he said here...

How amazing was Noah's work? Building an enormous ark the likes of which had never been seen before, seeing a parade of animals that will never be duplicated, seeing God's mighty power unleashed on the earth and the sinful people and seeing Him restore life to that same earth.

But think about it a little deeper. Noah had no real tools, no chainsaw, he had no transportation, no hardware store around the corner, no band aids, antibiotic ointment, no tylenol!

So he starts cutting down trees, trimming off the branches, hauling back to the building site. Yes, that was probably exciting. For the first 10 trees. But what about tree 387? How could his back have felt? Do you think that started to feel mundane?

And what about those around him taunting him? Hey, Noah? What are you doing building an ark...it has NEVER rained. You are crazy.

Mundane.

Yeah.

Helmer called Noah's life the ultimate Groundhog's Day!

No kidding!

And I'm sure as that door to the ark was closed by God, Noah and his family must have all breathed a huge sigh of relief...'oh thank goodness! We are not crazy!' And when that same door finally opened they saw their reward for faith in the mundane.

I think about this and my life and how sometimes it might feel ordinary.

How I could be doing something more exciting, glamorous for Christ.

And then I think about the little prayers I hear my kids saying and how sometimes they are so kind to each other and they tell each other and perfect strangers about Jesus...

and I see my rewards are so great...even in the mundane.

Or perhaps, especially in the mundane.