Yesterday, I caught up with a very good friend from Winnipeg (holla!). We were updating each other on our weekend happenings. Mine was uneventful. I was telling her that my only goal for the day is to drink water. I needed to drink lots of water because it was a hot day, specifically 31 degrees Celsius. The heat was giving me a headache. Then she mentioned that she read a book wherein every chapter is a day’s goal for the protagonist. So let’s say it’s Day 23, the main character’s goal is to do household chores and so on.
When I think about it, these simple daily goals help centre the day and make one feel accomplished even in the little things. Really, we should and we can worship and glorify the Lord in the details of our day. He is there at the minute moments and familiar routines as much as He is there during our big breaks, major life events. He is always in the present. When we start to worry about the future and when we regret the past, our trust in God has already faltered because we are not living in the moment. The past, present and future are His. Trusting Him means leaving them at the foot of the cross where they truly belong and going on our day – enjoying every breath, every moment where his love, joy, grace and mercy are expressed in our everyday encounters, common challenges and embodied by everyone around us: people we love, people we don’t like as much but we are working on it, people we just met, strangers who say good morning.
Only God knows what lies ahead and why the past played out the way it did. Even in the unknown, He is always around. It is also in our everyday thoughts and actions that we can shape and change ourselves for the better. We can train to be more enduring or loving or patient or all of the above. Our thoughts (goals) will ultimately shape our character. Let’s take it one day at a time. So let’s love and appreciate the ordinary. Set simple goals for ourselves and let the Lord direct those too, as much as we seek Him on our grander aspirations. We’re ordinary people with an extraordinary God.
We’re just ordinary people
We don’t know which way to go
‘Cause we’re ordinary people
Trying,
Alodia