Sanctification Within the Mundane

There have been seasons when I have been convinced I would make much better progress spiritually if life would simply become a little less demanding.

If I had more uninterrupted time, fewer people needing me, less financial pressure, fewer messes to clean up, and perhaps one morning where I could read my Bible without somebody calling my name before I reached the second paragraph, surely I would be more patient, more prayerful, more settled, and altogether more like the Christian I keep meaning to become.

That thought sounds reasonable until I begin looking at it honestly.

What I am really saying is that holiness would come more easily if God gave me different circumstances.

Yet the place where I am standing today is the place where He has chosen to deal with me.

That realization changes the way I look at ordinary life.

Romans 12:2 says: “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”

Transformed is not a decorative word.

It assumes that something in us must be shaped, pressed, corrected, and brought into agreement with Christ, and I have found that this work rarely happens in circumstances where nothing rubs against my flesh.

Family life provides plenty of rubbing.

The very people I love most have a remarkable way of exposing what still needs work in me, because love lived at close range leaves very little room for pretending.

I can sound patient in theory and discover otherwise by noon.

I can talk sincerely about serving others and then become resentful when service interferes with something I wanted to do.

I can believe myself surrendered until the day unfolds differently than I planned.

Perhaps that is part of the lesson.

Jesus said, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.” Luke 9:23.

I am struck by the word daily because most of the dying to self in my own life has been far less dramatic than I once imagined Christian sacrifice would be.

Usually nobody is watching.

There is no great moment.

There is simply a choice between responding from the flesh or yielding again to the Lord.

And then another choice later.

That kind of life can feel monotonous because the same lessons seem to return wearing different clothes, but perhaps repetition is part of how God gets truth deep enough into us that it finally becomes character.

There are responsibilities I have carried so long that I sometimes stop seeing any spiritual value in them.

Work becomes work.

The same house needs tending.

The same people have needs.

The same weaknesses in myself seem to require correction.

Then Colossians 3:23 reaches into all of that:

“And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men.”

Whatsoever.

That word leaves very little room for separating life into the important spiritual things and the ordinary things I would rather hurry through.

If God has placed something within my stewardship, then the way I carry it matters.

The difficulty, I think, is that we often want sanctification to feel more spiritual than it does.

We want some great breakthrough, some decisive moment where we finally become patient, content, disciplined, or selfless. Instead, the Lord seems content to teach us through repetition, giving us another opportunity tomorrow to respond differently than we did today.

There is mercy in that, though sometimes I would prefer something faster.

Psalm 103:14 says, “For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.”

I return to that verse often because I know my own dust better than I used to.

There are days when I begin with very sincere intentions and still find myself irritated by midafternoon.

There are times when I recognize the right response and choose poorly anyway.

Sometimes the clearest evidence that God is still working on me is how quickly He makes me aware of the places where I still resist Him.

He knows all of that.

He also knows how to sanctify a person made of dust.

Paul asked the Lord to remove his thorn and instead heard, “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” 2 Corinthians 12:9.

I wonder how often I have asked God to remove circumstances that were exposing exactly where I needed His grace.

There are things we should change when wisdom allows us to change them.

Exhaustion is not a virtue, suffering should not be romanticized, and refusing help does not make anyone more spiritual.

Yet there will always be parts of our lives that cannot be arranged according to preference, and those places often reveal what comfort allows us to keep hidden.

The hard child may reveal impatience.

The limited season may uncover discontentment.

The monotonous work may show us how much we depend upon recognition to feel useful.

Once exposed, those things can be brought to Christ.

That is where the schoolroom becomes personal.

God is not standing somewhere beyond this season waiting for me to finally arrive at the circumstances where He can use me.

He is already here, dealing with me through the life I actually have.

Philippians 1:29 says, “For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake.”

We tend to reserve the word suffering for enormous trials, and rightly so, but there is also a wearing down of self that happens through ordinary faithfulness.

Much of Christian maturity seems to grow there, in the daily places where our wills are crossed and we discover whether we can continue walking with God without needing life to cooperate first.

That is comforting to me because it means I do not have to wait for another season to begin becoming more like Christ.

I do not need another house.

Another family.

Another income.

Another set of circumstances.

I need to yield to Him here.

Perhaps the greatest temptation in a difficult season is to spend so much time longing for its end that we miss what God intends to do within us before it passes.

We pray, “Lord, get me through this.”

Sometimes He seems to answer, “Yes, but I am going to change you while we are here.”

I am beginning to appreciate that answer more than I once did.

Looking back, some of the seasons I would never have chosen became the places where I learned truths I could not have learned as deeply through ease.

I did not recognize the lesson while I was living it because I was too busy wishing the circumstances would change.

Distance gives us better eyesight sometimes.

I can see now that God was not wasting those years.

And I do not believe He is wasting this day either.

So perhaps when life feels repetitive, cramped, inconvenient, or far removed from whatever we imagined spiritual growth would look like, we should resist the urge to despise the setting.

This may be the schoolroom.

The lesson may be closer than we think.

And the Teacher knows exactly what He is doing.

Biblical Womanhood

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