Satisfaction in the Mundane

Everyone wants to live a good story. And lately I was thinking about that while chopping a heap of vegetables.  

No one wakes up in the morning and thinks, “Boy, today I’d really love to do a string of necessary but inconsequential tasks that consume my time from now until I flop back into bed.” But let’s be honest—on most days, we may as well have thought that. Then at least we would have had an accurate picture of how the day would feel.  

No one wakes up in the morning and thinks, “Boy, today I’d really love to do a string of necessary but inconsequential tasks that consume my time from now until I flop back into bed.”

Does this sound familiar? “Choose 7 inane tasks, put them in order, and write them in your schedule. You may choose from the following tasks:  

“Pack lunches, spend time in traffic, vacuum the floor, attempt to use frustrating technology, wipe soap scum and toothpaste from the sink, send emails that will probably never been read or applied, forget you had planned lunch with so-and-so, sit through a pointless meeting, shop for groceries but fail to find the one ingredient you really needed, reply to one million people who need you, walk the dog,  change a very grievous diaper, spend more time in traffic, make a palatable dinner, clean up, fix the broken this-or-that, do homework, brush teeth, put kids down, and crash in your own bed. 

“Now cross through the 3 that you accomplished today. Re-write the remaining 4 on tomorrow’s schedule along with 7 new tasks. Repeat process.” 

If that sounds depressingly familiar, I can relate. I mean, I don’t have children yet, but I’ve closely observed humans who do. I’ve also been on both ends of the productivity spectrum. I’ve worked a very busy job, and I’ve been a stay at home wife. Every calling comes with a unique set of challenges. But what isn’t unique is the universal desire to matter, to do something that isn’t pointless.  

All this I thought about while chopping vegetables, perhaps one of the most quintessentially-mundane tasks. (My apologies to all you foodies out there. I love the result but never the process.) But it got me thinking about a little booklet I read by a seventeenth-century monk named Brother Lawrence. The book is called The Practice of the Presence of God, and while I would perhaps disagree with some of his theology, he had much to teach me about satisfaction—even joy—in the mundane.  

Every calling comes with a unique set of challenges. But what isn’t unique is the universal desire to matter, to do something that isn’t pointless.  

Brother Lawrence was the cook for his monastery. But instead of feeling ripped off that he had signed up to meditate on God and instead found himself pulling a Nacho Libre, he chose to meditate on God while he cooked! Check out this portion of a prayer that he wrote: 

“Lord of all pots and pans and things… 
Make me a saint by getting meals 
And washing up the plates!” 

For real, Brother Lawrence?? And take a gander at this kick in the pants: “…Our sanctification [does] not depend upon changing our works, but in doing for God’s sake [that] which we commonly do for our own.” But isn’t that great news? Finding satisfaction and sanctification in our daily lives requires not a change of vocation but a change of purpose. Looking for ways to love God and love others in our daily tasks could redeem whole hours, days, and eventually years.  

Finding satisfaction and sanctification in our daily lives requires not a change of vocation but a change of purpose.

So next time I find myself chopping vegetables begrudgingly, let me view it as a way to love my husband and offer thanks to God for His provision of all good things. Let me remember that a wasted day is not one spent in small tasks, but in the words of Brother Lawrence, “Believe me, count as lost each day you have not used in loving God.”