And doing the work in front of you that day is all that God really asks of you. Just attending to and finishing to the best of your ability whatever the work is he has given you to do. Maybe simply living your life to the best of your ability brings all the glory to God that he desires from you.
Brew the coffee. Make the bed. Pack the kids’ lunches. Get them to school. Show up to the office. Respond to the emails. Pay the bills. Prep the meals. Take your meds. Get back to bed at a decent hour.
All the normal, uneventful, innocuous tasks that come with being human. Nothing fancy. Nothing extravagant. Nothing with the potential of going viral on social media.
Maybe this idea of “changing the world for God” comes more from our insecure egos than it does from his desires. Maybe all he’s really looking for is people who will just live out their lives in the world he has given them to live in—quietly, simply, faithfully, gratefully.
As Thomas Merton has said,
A tree gives glory to God by being a tree. For in being what God means it to be it is obeying God. It “consents,” so to speak, to God’s creative love. It is expressing an idea which is in God and which is not distinct from the essence of God, and therefore a tree imitates God by being a tree.
New Seeds of Contemplation
