The Everydayness of Life
11:33 AMHeatherLike everyone else, life happened this week. The usual chaos of shlepping my kids to and fro and attempting to keep pace with the laundry from a family of five and cooking dinners and paying bills and going to soccer games. Blah, blah, blah.
The usual. The rhythms of life that often feel as though they are on hyper drive and I get to Friday and try to remember if I've had meaningful conversations with my three kids or my husband. It's all rather a blur, and I am desperate for my pajamas and bedtime by 4:00 pm on Friday.
The everydayness of life. It can feel exhausting and demeaning in its demands. It can push us to a place of standing precariously on the precipice of a cliff. When we are tired and worn out and ragged around the edges, by the wear and tear of just the daily grind. And we begin to think we might be losing our mind.
Signs you might have arrived there include losing your cool when the website you are using suddenly kicks you out. And life as you know it feels as though it is OVER. Or when you feel a rush of accomplishment that you booked that flight. Only to realize you did so for the wrong day. And you schedule something on your calendar, contentedly crossing that off your list. Before it's brought to your attention that you just booked that at the same time as a family wedding. And this would be the wedding for which you are currently assembling the invitations. The invitations that are piled on your table, yet somehow that date mix-up thing happened anyway. All of it leaving a feeling of drowning in the flood of the mundane and the tasks and the work and the needs and the fast pace of life.
All hypothetically speaking, of course.
This was not a red letter week for me. I was tiny little push away from losing my cool. All week long.
And I read this on Wednesday.
Nevertheless, as surely as I live and as surely as the glory of the Lord fills the whole earth....
Numbers 14:21
His glory fills the earth. The certainty that the awe inspiring glory of the Lord fills the whole earth.
It feels rather like a pipe dream when life kicks in to high gear and all that fills our world are the worries and concerns that press in on us. The deadlines and needs of each day. His glory feels elusive, like a flowery fairy tale alive in our imagination only.
Because our eyes are just tunnel visioned on the less than glorious daily routines of work and family. We may snatch a quick word of Scripture, glossing through someone's Jesus Calling post on Facebook. Or sing along with a favorite praise song, feeling a slight warm fuzzy before it slips away in our rush of the day.
But yet, there it is. In black and white. The factual statement that the glory of the Lord fills the whole earth. Not sometimes, like an occasional sighting of some distant planet. Not possibly, like a weather forecast whose predictability is questionable. And not far away, requiring some lengthy ritual or trying requirement in order to snag a glimpse of it.
No. The verse plainly states that God's glory fills the whole earth.
I scratched my head and thought, "if this is true, then why does it feel so hard to believe?" I've lately been challenged to consider the difference it would make in my day-to-day life if I could begin to grasp his glory and truly feel the awe and fear of how big he is.
Because I'm realizing that if I could really GET his majesty, then the stuff of earth would lose it's grip on me. The worries and fears and strivings would melt away. If I can learn to fear the Lord with awe and reverance and humility. It could change everything. It WOULD change everything.
So, how? HOW do I stay focused and gain eyes to see this glory that fills the earth? How do I begin to truly believe that all that worries me in this life is temporary and fleeting and nothing compared to the glory to come? How can I live every day with the wonder that I've felt in those mountaintop moments when I've worshipped and listened to teaching that seems to cut away the bindings of the chaotic life that distracts me?
How do I bring the experience of those moments into my mundane so that I can live above the frenzy of the circumstance?
I don't know.
Oh, I'm sorry--perhaps you were thinking this blog post had the magic formula.
But I don't have it. I'm just wrestling away here, asking the Lord to bring the foggy and unclear ideas of grasping his glory into a clearer focus. I'm asking him to show me how to live like those regular people we read about in Scripture who did amazing things. Like stand off against a giant and take a step onto the waves and go willingly into a fiery furnace. Because I think the reason those common men and women did uncommon things is because they knew.
They knew that beyond their chaos, beyond their trials, beyond their circumstances...God's glory was filling the earth. They were hanging on to the wonder of it and it made all the difference in how they could take one step at a time in this life. No matter what.
I think that the 21 men who were martyred by ISIS recently were able to sit on their knees and hold their heads up because they KNEW that God's glory filled the earth. And it was brighter and more magnificent than the threats against them. It was the brightest light and tangible reassurance and nothing on this earth could possibly compare. It beckoned them to endure. It challenged them to look beyond. It encouraged them to press on. It called to them that God was biggest. It strengthened them beyond their own abilities.
Because they saw it. They knew it. They felt it.
The Lord's glory fills the whole earth.
Hidden behind our stacks of laundry and piles of dirty dishes and overcrowded schedules and long tasks lists.
We can see the glory of the Lord.
It's always there.
It's always been there.
It will always be there.
But first, we must ask for eyes to see it. We must ask for a heart that craves it. We must intentionally take time to dig into his word, like an incremental investment into our soul knowing that it will pay dividends if we just keep doing it. We must boldly proclaim to the Lord--I do believe! Help my unbelief! (Mark 9:24). So that we can learn to take him at his word.
So that on our darkest and hardest and most trying days, we might be anchored by the certainty that God's glory fills the earth. And it overshadows all of the things that seek to distract us. It satisfies us as nothing else on this earth can. Because we were created to bask in it. To seek it. To hunger for it. To be changed by it. To magnify it with our very lives.
God's glory.
The awe and wonder that our God is infinitely beyond our understanding. That he is too much for our feeble minds to grasp. That his love and his grace and his mercy are deeper than any shame that plagues us. That his strength is mightier than any challenge we face. That he is the same God who spoke the world into existence, telling the ocean when to swell and when to retreat. That he knows the name of every star. That he knows the number of hairs on our head. That he is not bound by time and he knows what all has happened to us and he knows what will happen to us. And he knows all of our mistakes and sinful thoughts and hidden missteps. And he loves us still.
That is God's glory.
That we might beg him to help us catch even a glimpse and to continue to feed our appetite for his glory. To chase it rather than the things of this earth. To choose, even in our exhausting mundane, to believe that there is something bigger. Something better that makes it all worth it.
Give us eyes to see your glory, Lord. Every single day. Through the house work and the job and the family and the friends and the car pools and the busy pace.
To pause long enough to be still. And realize that the blue skies and sunrise and the draw of each breath and the tasks we've been given and the simplest of things all point to one thing.
His glory. That fills the earth.
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