I’m not sure why this phrase has been going around in my head today. I was thinking about it the other day – for many people the hardest part of life is coping with the ordinariness of it. It’s the tyranny of the mundane. It may even be tough to get out of bed. The same old routine every single day.
There is a lot to be said of those who can cheerfully do the same thing day in and day out without complaining. I often look at people I see behind the counter while out shopping. Some look as if that is the last place they would want to be. They don’t smile. They don’t greet. Life for them is so very dull. Yet each one of us have it within our power to be kind and attentive to those around us.
Life can at times be so boring.
Pic from clipartkid.com
I was speaking to the person who runs the company for whom I work and she was telling me the roller coast ride that a teacher goes on when they go overseas to teach in a complete different culture. She says they start off almost jubilant. The day has finally arrived. Their life is going somewhere. They arrive in the Middle East and are happy to have got there and everything is new and so exciting. Then after a short while, culture shock set is. It’s all so very different they don’t know where to start. They get cranky and homesick and don’t quite know what to do. But eventually that passes and they become happy again.
The ups and downs of life will always happen. While you can learn to be content whatever your circumstances it is because you can do all things through Christ who gives you strength. That has to be kept in mind. But there has to be discontentment in the first place – that takes you to the place where you dig deep and trust God for all that is happening – knowing He will strengthen you.
Sometimes that point of discontentment is not over a home, family or health crisis. It is over the tyranny of the mundane. Life can be so boring and lacking in excitement and adventure. It is in those times that you have to call yourself to stop and say this is difficult to cope with but to learn contentment you know to Whom you can turn.
I had a stroke of this when I got home from our two days away yesterday. I came home to a deluge of emails. It took me 8 hours to get through them all. I was as sullen as a skunk!
Somehow I missed this very point yesterday. While I was struggling under the mundane, I didn’t dig deep and trust God!
Anyway, it passed and I have just about caught up. My contentment is back on track.
2 Corinthians 1:21-22
“And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put His seal on us and given us His Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.”
Captured in Christ.
These are the days, mundane or not.
Keep the smile going.
God bless you!
In His Grip,
Helga xx 🙂