Recently, I felt like God gave me the overarching explanation of what I write about: Trusting God in the trauma, drama, and minutiae of everyday life. It’s been awhile since I wrote about the minutiae, which is of course where we spend about 80% of our day. When I find God there, I am reminded that he doesn’t just care about my spiritual life, He cares about my life.
If I can engage with Him while in line at the grocery store, at a stop light, in the waiting room, at the gas station, at the kid’s sporting events, while doing the dishes, cooking dinner or even, dare I say, at the DMV, then I can maintain a type of intimacy with the God of my understanding at all times.
Not just when my life is exploding or I am imploding.
So, in that vein, I give you the following insight, triggered by me walking up my stairs after doing one of the most mundane chores of all, feeding my cat.
I had just fed her (because by 4:00pm she gets frenzied and acts like she hasn’t been fed for 3 days) and headed back up the stairs. I assumed she would just stay down there and eat, but on the way up I had the thought, “If she darts past me as I am heading upstairs, it’s because ultimately, she just wants to be where we are.”
By the time I reached the kitchen, she had done just that. A couple minutes later I found myself singing the lyrics to a worship song from the year 2000 (I looked that up because I knew it came from somewhere deep in my subconscious!).
“I just want to be where You are, dwelling daily in Your presence. I don’t want to worship from afar. Draw me near to where You are…In Your presence, that’s where I always want to be. I just want to be, I just want to be with You.” (Don Moen)
I have sung those words dozens of time on our worship team so the song came flooding back in once I opened the gates. On a side note, apparently my younger-self could memorize things like a boss. Today, I am lucky if I remember your name about 1 minute after you introduce yourself!
As I let this song revisit me, I found myself singing it as I drove around town and tooled around my house. Besides bringing back some nostalgic feelings about that era of my life, it also reminded me of a study we did around that time called “Experiencing God.”
The study, and the song, both suggest that maybe, just maybe, we should be trying to find out where God is already at work and meeting Him there. What a novel thought. Instead of doing what I often do and invite Him to join me, maybe I should invite myself to do what He is already doing.
There is a subtle but drastic difference.
One attitude centers around me and what I have going on that day or in my life in general.
When my primary purpose is “just being where He is”, wherever that may be, my life is an adventure waiting to happen, even in the minutiae.
He surprises all the time.
