Is It Supposed To Be This Way?
Sometimes distractions are the easiest ways to get through the messiest parts of my mindless mundane.
The chores others often despise, I enjoy. Finding and folding, matching and sorting – giving order to chaos and structure to messes. Lost socks find their match and shirts with stains become like new. Every T-shirt is folded in uniform, and every blouse is hung according to color. The pressure to clean the “right” way is absent, and so is the opinion of others. Things get done as they should with hands that work while our mind flies on autopilot.
As we enjoy the simplicity of life playing out the way we want it, we also see it unravel before our eyes within minutes. Sometimes the systems fail, and our distractions turn to chaos. When the laundry we sort comes up three socks unmatched – now the strays have no place, and they enter the world of lost socks where we will never see our favorite gingerbread pair again. When the rush out the door left a pile of laundry on your bed, and the shirt you needed didn’t get folded – now its wrinkles make it unwearable. Or when the papers stack on the desk like the dishes piling in the sink because something else got our attention last night and it did not get done.
The systems that were supposed to succeed have now failed and disappointment lingers with that sinking reality.
Our mindless mundane has now become our desire to fix things that no longer seem fixable. When we go a step deeper, we can admit that when life does not live up to our expectations of what we thought it should look like, we ask the question: Is it really supposed to be this way?
Routines give us the comfort we crave when life feels far from mundane. We stick to our routines because we desire for plans to go our way. The tidying spaces that drive our motivations to perform will eventually become messy, and we will struggle to gain control again. Plans will be canceled. Our boss will not be as excited to use our new idea and suggest a strategy that looks nothing like ours. Our friend will fail to invite us to the party. And now the activities that once distracted us provide more of a space for our thoughts to linger and manifest until we sink into the lonely feeling that certainly this is not the way it was supposed to be.
The mindless mundane is a fantasizing distraction from the reality that things do not go our way and people do not act the way they should.
What if we were made for more than mindless distractions?
Our routines cannot give us the comfort we crave because they eventually fail us. Mindless distractions only last a few hours before we move onto another distraction. Our hearts will always be searching for something to fill our desires.
I want my searching to always lead me back to the someone who never fails me, and that is Jesus Christ.
A beautiful thing about God is that He creates. When He created me, He knew exactly how my mind worked – the circumstances that disappoint me, the annoyances that get under my skin, and the feelings I try to brush off. God knows my struggle to be heard and my tendency to politely please people.
Sometimes I sit in that sinking disappointment that things do not go my way. You can read more about the heartbreak of a broken promise. But that is when my perspective shifts to see God working in the tiny details.
When It Really Shouldn’t Be This Way
Psalms 19:4&6 says, “Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun… It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is deprived of its warmth.”
God works every detail, providing for even the needs of the sun to have a roof and to let the light stretch in the heavens. Nothing passes from Him – not even the details of your mindless mundane. Our plans may sink into the potholes of a rundown road, but God never lets us slip away from His grip. He holds His promises to us tightly, holding us as His children who were created to walk with Him not away from Him.
What if we walked into the messes of life and accepted God’s goodness to meet us where we are, even in the hurting – even when it wasn’t supposed to be this way? I want to bravely praise the Lord for His goodness to lead me when I cannot see and direct me when I do not know the way.
Our God is not only the Creator, but He is also our Provider. He works behind the scenes to provide the light, the direction, and the shoes to walk into our mission to live life devoted to Him and loving His people.
So, things were not supposed to be this way. Our challenge is to no longer bury our head in distractions but to praise God for His direction. God is in the details, and if that is where He is, there is no other place I would rather be.
