Hi Friends,

Okay, pop-quiz time!

(Don’t worry, you get to answer in your head. Or not at all. No rules here.)

Which of these activities that Jesus did was holy?

1) Healing the sick
2) Preaching the Sermon on the Mount
3) Getting away alone to pray
4) Walking through Samaria on His way to Judea
5) Sitting down because He was tired
6) Dying on the cross
7) Cooking fish on the beach

I think you know what I’m getting at. But first, what about a few more:

8) Re-measuring wood, muttering the number under His breath so as not to forget while He adjusted His carpentry tool
9) Sleeping
10) Testing the waters of a river on His feet and finding it much colder than expected
11) Going to school

Wait. Where is that in the Bible?

There aren’t explicit verses detailing most of the mundane moments of Jesus’ life, and none at all about His first 30 years of obscurity, but we know that He took on flesh and bone as much as we (Hebrews 2:14). There is no human experience He opted out of, including the ones we see as ordinary.

And if He — the Holy One, the Ancient of Days from everlasting — took on flesh and experienced the ordinary, then surely every single last experience of normalcy has been made sacred.

Even the moments when He’s not praying. Even the moments when His mind is absorbed in His work. Even the moments… yes. All of the moments.

What does this mean for us?

Well, it means all of our ordinary moments are made holy when we are His. Read that again.

I didn’t say they’re holy when we’re praying while doing ordinary things (like washing dishes). I didn’t say they’re holy in the moments when we’re stepping away from the patterns of life to fast or pray.

We tend to think:
ordinary = valueless one way or the other (unless you do them while praying)
spiritual disciplines = holy

But the truth is, all our moments are holy when we are His.

Just like the security and faithfulness of my marriage is not more true when I am outwardly expressing my love for my husband than when I am comparing the cost of asparagus vs broccoli on a grocery trip, in the same way, the worth, beauty and holiness of our lives are not more true when we are fasting and praying.

The distinction comes not from us, but from Him.

So: Picnic. Train for that marathon. Run the dish towels through the wash while you write up a client contract. Eat pizza with your kids for dinner. Laugh at their jokes.

Your ordinary is not to be escaped in order to be more holy.

Every ordinary moment of our lives is made holy when we are His.

–Anna

P.S. Did this spark some thoughts for you? Hit reply — I’d love to hear them!

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