normal life

I wonder if normal life isn’t one of the challenges we face as we try to live faithful lives.

The writer of Ecclesiastes notes that the simple routines of our daily lives - eating, work, sleep, fellowship - are blessings, maybe the surest and best blessings of life away from heaven. But this morning, reading through Luke 17, I wonder if those same blessings can’t also be seductive, maybe even soporific.

Here’s part of Jesus’ explanation of the end of the world, in verses 26-30: “‘Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.

“‘It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.

“‘It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed.’”

Jesus seems to be saying that many of us won’t be ready when he comes again, not because we’re entangled in sin, but because we’re just living our lives. Having our meals and fellowship, marrying and starting families, going about our business, building homes. Day to day stuff and then, wham! Just like that, it’s Judgment Day, and we’re not ready. To much was left undone, unaddressed, because we thought we had time. 

But those are the things that we live for. They consume our time and attention. They get the majority of our focus.

I think the point here is maybe that normal life, rather than the distraction from God it so easily becomes, is meant to be the means by which we live out our faith. Our meals and marriages, deals and dwellings, food and fellowship are all meant to be expressions of dependence and gratitude. Each choice, every activity, done thoughtfully and prayerfully and thankfully, becomes worship.

If we live that way, we’re always ready.