Recently, I was chatting with a friend who has been through a decade of difficulty—her husband had a work-related accident when the oldest of her three children was only 14, and workman’s comp still hasn’t been settled. We discussed the blessing of boring.
When times are tough we often yearn for Red Sea-style miracles. Instead, God takes us into the desert and gives us manna. Small, daily stuff. We stare in dismay and ask, “What is it?” (which is, according to some scholars, the literal meaning of the word manna). It doesn’t feel like a miracle. And yet it is.
In a crisis we desperately want our ‘normal’ back. We don’t want this new normal, even if the cross we are given can lead us closer to Christ. And still, we find our healing through the ordinary routine, the boring miracles of everyday life. We can find God where we are, rather than where we want to be. We can learn to grow in love of Him as we stumble forward, tripping over our fears and sadness. We can figure out how to serve Him in the midst of our inadequacy, and how to accept His grace in the throes of our self-criticism.
The miracle is, we grow through these kinds of trials and tribulations. Sure, we’d rather get to the same place an easier way. But if the path we have been given to walk is rocky, God is still there with us. He is there every single day, in every single step. And when taking just one step is overwhelming, there is a huge blessing in the fact that He only asks us to take one step at a time. Call it tedious, call it difficult, call it mundane—it’s still real.
There is manna in your life every day, just as there is in mine. That’s boring. But also… it is not. It’s a miracle.
