From now on, I think we should greet each other every morning with how Gabriel greeted Mary in Luke 1:28 (The Message):
Good morning!
You're beautiful with God's beauty,
Beautiful inside and out!
God be with you.
What if all the boring parts matter to God?
“Yet God made us to spend our days in rest, work, and play, taking care of our bodies, our families, our neighborhoods, our homes. What if all these boring parts matter to God? What if days passed in ways that feel small and insignificant to us are weighty with meaning and part of the abundant life that God has for us?…
“I like big ideas. I can get drunk on talk of justification, ecclesiology, pneumatology, Christology, and eschatology. But these big ideas are borne out - lived believed, and enfleshed - in the small moments of our day, in the places, seasons, homes, and communities that compose our lives.”
-Tish Harrison Warren, Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life
I cannot recommend this book enough.
A Life of Freedom and Abundance
“We were never hardwired to be free, if by ‘freedom’ we mean an independent, self-sufficient life. We were created by God to be connected to something vastly bigger than ourselves. We were designed to have our lives organized and directed by an agenda that is bigger than our truncated personal desires and goals. We were carefully built by God to have every aspect of our personhood connected to him and his plans for us, and when we reject him, we don’t live autonomously; we replace him with something or someone….
“He is freeing us from slavery to what is not true and cannot deliver. He is rescuing us from serving what will never give us life. He is protecting us from seeking hope where hope will never be found. It really is true - his call to obey is a tool of his rescuing grace….
“God’s call to obey doesn’t end your life; it is meant to protect the life that only he can give you.”
-Paul David Tripp, New Morning Mercies: A Daily Gospel Devotional