Saints are Created in the Mundane

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When we think of a very spiritual or devout person, we usually think of someone who is beyond this world and our lived experience. Maybe this individual that we picture lives a solitary life, they are occupied with loving God every minute of every day? Or perhaps we think of a very public personality that ministers on stage in front of thousands? Maybe it’s an influencer with a huge number of followers?  

Our first thoughts in this vein don’t tend to be centered on the quiet and patient believer who works a job, has children (or none), and struggles to pay bills. We tend to separate the holy from the mundane, from what we think constitutes the normal, the usual; contrasted with what seems spiritual. Yet God is present in the totality of our lives and all facets of it. He is the God who is with us either in deep prayer or in a bad day at work. He doesn’t compartmentalize life like I tend to do. I naturally make boxes for myself; the holy goes over here and the normal stuff here.

Yet from what I discovered, our formation happens mostly in the mundane aspects of life. There really aren’t any separate boxes; they’re all interconnected. My normal everyday existence matters as much to God as Sunday mornings. Usually what we learn on Sundays is tested and worked out Monday through Saturday.

If we think about it, the Christian faith is workshopped in the ordinary and not in the extraordinary. Yes, the extraordinary happens to us also and we greatly treasure those experiences, but God is also very present in what Eugene Peterson calls “the long obedience in the same direction”, the daily living out the Christian journey. This happens in the middle of what seems like the swamp of the ordinary and routine. It is here that I need the grace to get up every day to face the world. The world is unfortunately still very messy regardless of whether I’m feeling particularly spiritual or not. Sometimes I’m the messy one and the world has to experience my problems and hypocrisy.

Yet, to our relief, God’s grace meets us in every minute. I am up and down; grace is steady like a stream. It is in this stream that the slog of the workdays, the cry of an angry child, the doctors' appointments and bill payments are washed. If not for God’s Spirit working in my everyday life I will rust and freeze under the grime. I can’t be like Christ without Christ and can’t function faithfully without Him being faithful when I’m not. I can only move forward in the gradual obedience of discipleship to Jesus when I meet with Jesus in the mundane. This is how saints are formed: by life and for life. Thank God for the grace to keep walking forward no matter how many times we fall.

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