Ordinary Things

I believe that God sometimes speaks to us through the ordinary things in our lives–even those things that are so ingrained in our daily routine that we hardly notice them at all.

As I arrived to work yesterday, my right hand reached to my hip where I usually find my corporate ID badge. As my hand fumbled and searched in vain my face flushed with the realization that my badge was not there, but rather hanging comfortably in its normal nightly resting place at home.

My first thoughts were of the hassle of checking in at the security desk, the delay it would cause and having to surrender my driver’s license. These thoughts were quickly replaced with thoughts of embarrassment resulting from the impending call to Human Resources, arriving late to my cube and the “special” ID badge I would have the privilege of donning for the day–you know, the one with a black rectangle where your smiling face should be and the wide red stripe at the bottom that serves as a beacon to tell everyone that you forgot your badge again.

As I passed through the turnstile and clipped the badge on my shirt I noticed two words in bold font on the badge in place of my name. The words were certainly not unfamiliar, in fact I had seen them on a similar badge that I wore two days before. The difference was that this time I heard a soft, gentle voice saying something to me. Very likely that voice had spoken the same thing on other occasions–times when I was simply too hurried or busy to notice. Maybe I was unable to hear because of all the other clamor in my life. Somehow this time was different. The two words were “Temporary Employee.”

Temporary was the word that caught my attention and I heard the quiet voice say “Son, the life you are experiencing now is just that: temporary.” Thoughts started racing through my mind and I realized how focused on the temporal I have become. Not only is my employment temporary, but so is the motorcycle I rode to work on, the garage that houses it, the home it is attached to, the clothes I hurried to put on, the bed I labored to roll out of and the list goes on. I thought about how I kissed my wife and son before I left home and about how temporary our very lives on Earth are. I thought of how my life seems to be spent flitting from one temporal thing to another.

However, temporal things are not the problem. The problem is my focus on the temporal to the exclusion of the eternal. I know in my heart that I should pursue the eternal with utmost priority, but find myself drowning in the Sea of Temporality. My heart knows that I should “[But] seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6:33), but it seems as though this reality is hidden from my fleshly eyes and like the crew of the Starship Enterprise, I have encountered a temporal rift and am stuck in a loop forever retracing my steps.

Although frustrated with my own frailty, I know our God is the One who holds everything in the palm of His hand; the One who knows all the stars by name; all knowing, all powerful, yet full of tenderness and grace; longing to pour mercy into the hearts of His children. It is this knowledge that gives this struggling soul hope. May the Lord continue to use ordinary things to remind us all to focus on what really matters in this life and especially as they relate to the life to come. May we be able to recognize the things that are temporal and use them to ensure our lives are ever being changed into the likeness of Jesus Christ the eternal Son of God.

© Jeff Bogue
September 9, 2008