As I sat down to attempt writing this devotional, asking God as I did what to write about, a funny question came into my head: “What would you RATHER be doing?”
In the hum-drum of everyday life, it is pretty easy to feel like you are “stuck in a rut”. Life is full of petty routines. In fact, it seems to follow a rather boring rhythm sometimes. Wake up at 5, time with God, get dressed, get breakfast, get the kids off to school, and it’s off to work to do 8 hours of routine things. Or, if you are like me and are retired, then the next steps will depend upon the day. Sunday, gotta get ready for church. Monday is small group. Tuesday is groceries. Wednesday is website update. Thursday is cleaning and finance day. Friday is the day of the other website update. Saturday is laundry day.
Sometimes these routines we find ourselves in can be very tiresome, and we end up asking ourselves how we ever got into this rut in the first place… What would we rather be doing? Going to the beach! Leaving on vacation! Going clothes shopping! Just about anything!
And so life goes by, and all we can think about is what we would rather be doing…
I don’t know about you, but when I’m busy complaining about the humdrum, when my mind is occupied with the “what would I rather be doing” question, there isn’t any cognitive skills left over to enjoy what I am actually doing!
Even as I think about this, however, my mind immediately jumps to, “well what’s fun about this routine cooking, anyway?” Or “Enjoy? You mean the laundry???”
But wait. Isn’t there something to be enjoyed in even the most routine of our routines?
Take cooking dinner, for example. You are doing something extremely important. You are feeding someone! Even if you live alone, you are doing something vital: You are taking care of yourself!
And what about updating the website? Again, you are potentially blessing someone else more than you would ever know.
Then there’s the laundry. If you don’t do it, you don’t have any clean clothes. How sad would that be? Doing the laundry for your family ensures that you and your kids will have clean clothes for school and play and your spouse will have appropriate wear for work. I think many of us deserve a pat on the back for doing laundry!
What about walking the dog? It’s exercise, isn’t it? And look how much the dog enjoys it!
Wait. This business of “enjoying” the mundane tasks we are engaged in… it isn’t really about making ourselves happy, is it? It’s more about making other people happy! And when we focus on that, rather than on the questions of, “what would I RATHER be doing”, suddenly the tasks at hand don’t seem so long and tedious, do they? Why? Because we are focused on what God tells us to focus on: The needs of others! “You should remember the words of the Lord Jesus: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’” (Acts 20:35 NLT)
And when we focus on others, not only is the task at hand much less mundane and boring, but we are also blessed. Check out this verse: “For God is not unjust. He will not forget how hard you have worked for him and how you have shown your love to him by caring for other believers, as you still do.”(Hebrews 6:10 NLT)
Don’t waste your life away wishing you were somewhere else doing something else. Live in the moment. Enjoy everything you do!
Do you know what? My answer to the question, “what would you RATHER be doing” is a bit different now than it might have been at the beginning of this devotional…
In His love,
Lyn
Lynona Gordon Chaffart
Moderator, Associate Director, Answers2Prayer Ministries
