How Do You Deal With The Mundane?

Last week I read a quote on Instagram that was so good I have to share it with you. The quote is:

“Excellence requires a strong tolerance for the mundane.”- Pamela Waldrop Shaw

We all claim that we strive for excellence but how many of us really do the mundane well?

Do the Mundane Well

If you’re a business owner or entrepreneur, you’re probably a dreamer. You may have an eye to see the future and have a tendency to live there. That’s me. And if you’re anything like me, the day-to-day rhythms of life are a battle ground. I’m constantly pulling my mind out of the future and back to the present. Because the things I worry about, daydream about, and hope for are far ahead of me and I can’t live there.

I only have grace for today. For a lot of my life, I didn’t see the value of living in the present. I didn’t do the mundane well. I just wished it would hurry up. God has been working on balancing out this part of me through my husband, the ultimate person of presence (thank you Jesus), and recently He’s been showing me that the mundane is where we find him. He’s in the “boring” places of our lives.

Maybe you find yourself living in between dreams and you’re waiting for God to fulfill one that He’s promised to you. You’re aware of your part in all of it, but you know that ultimately it’s God that has to bring this dream to pass, because it’s far beyond you. Big dreamers know what I’m talking about. Big dreams require big breakthroughs.

The Power of Consistency

In the Bible, God led His people out of Egypt and through a desert to their promised land. And when it was time for them to actually take the land promised to them, God gave them a lesson in consistency.

The God that parted the Red Sea could certainly have worked out another miracle to give them Jericho instantly, but this story shows us that sometimes the miracle or breakthrough that we’re looking for is found in the mundane.

God told instructed Joshua and the Israelites to circle the city of Jericho every day for 6 days, and then on the seventh day, the grand finale, they had to walk 7 laps in one day. Brutal.

From our perspective it’s just another bible story, but from their perspective I bet their laps around Jericho look a lot like your day-to-day at the office.

Which lap are you on?

• You might have bigger dreams in your heart than the reality of what’s in front of you, but keep walking.
• You might feel like none of your current circumstances make sense, but keep walking.
• You might not understand how in the world God could take you from here to there, but keep walking.

In every single step we’re faced with a hard choice. We can give in to every bit of reason in our head and quit. We can cave into the lies of the enemy and back down. You can go ahead and join the crowd, because most people do that.

Or, we can do what’s in front of us and keep walking. We can be consistent. The longer I take laps the more I realize strong leadership is just outlasting the crowd. We don’t have to be super gifted or talented for God to use us, we just have to keep showing up. Keep doing the mundane well.

As we walk around the laps of life, God has a way of working His purposes out in us. In every lap, He’s there, before us and beside us. The laps are there to set us free. So when you feel down and discouraged in your soul, take a lap.

Because really, the laps of our lives are invitations to sit in the lap of the Father. To be still and to rest in knowing that He’s got it all under control. Everything is your life is right on schedule. He withholds no good thing from you.

How can we wonder why God is asking us to take another lap when we sit on a planet that has been consistently making laps since the dawn of time? Study his creation and you will see that He’s systematic. Consistent. Patiently working out His plans and purposes in your life. He does glorious, marvelous things in laps. Your life is one of them.