The beauty in the mundane – how to enjoy life every day.
Some seasons of life are full of new things; new relationships, a new job, a new apartment or even moving to a new city. In this seasons it’s easy to enjoy life, to find excitement and to constantly be discovering and learning new things. Then there are the seasons when nothing changes, there is nothing that is new, when each day looks the same and it feels like the days simple melt together and it’s hard to even remember what day it is. Seasons like this can last for a long time, years or even decades and it’s easy for us to just go into auto pilot, and just feel like there is this grey blanket of tiredness and boredom over our lives.
Today we will take a look at how we can enjoy life in these seasons and how to find the beauty in the mundane in these times in our lives.
Enjoying work and the fruit of our work is a gift from God
“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God.” Ecclesiastes 3:11-13
We were made to work, this is not a consequence of the fall, already in the very beginning we were called to stewardship. At that time it was stewardship over the garden of Eden, in our lives it looks more like stewardship over our home, our family, our work or study or whatever God leads us into. Stewardship is a calling over our lives, and even though it many times is hard work we can enjoy it because God enables us to but also knowing that it’s not something we just have to do but something that is filled with purpose and very much goes in line with what God has called us to do since the beginning. Let’s pray that He helps us see our lives through His eternal perspective.
Activate gratefulness daily
We have all heard many times how important it is to have an attitude of gratefulness, but sometimes we think we are grateful but in reality we are taking many things for granted, and this easily happens when we rarely are faced with the threat of these things being taken away from us.
When is the last time you spent time thanking God for clean water, for a roof over your head, for dirty dishes because He gave you a family, for health, for relationships or simply for salvation?
Sometimes our attitude of gratefulness needs to be activated to bear fruit in our thoughts and emotions. The same way a house plant needs light and water to continue living we need to nourish our hearts well to see good fruit in our lives.
Make each day and moment beautiful
It happens that days and weeks just fly by and we keep going through our to do lists without actually paying attention to what we are doing. As a person who tends to postpone things I don’t like doing I’ve learned that discipline is not always enough but that there is a way to bring beauty into each task I have. It can look like praying for the person that will sleep in the bed I’m making for our guests or for God to really meet the people in the room I’m cleaning. Sometimes it looks like taking my computer out to the local cafe to write a text or to put on a nice playlist and having a drink while making dinner.
To actually stop and appreciate each moment and not just rush through them to get to rest later. For me this has really been a life changer, and something that has really helped me enjoy and appreciate the days I previously would have called boring.
“So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” 1 Corinthians 10:31
And finally, let’s remember that we do everything for God and not for ourselves. He is the one that calls us, He is the one that enables us and the one who gets the glory. Today and everyday or our lives until we see Him face to face. Until then, let’s do our best to enjoy the life He gives us!
