Finding the Mundane Lane
During my last semester in graduate school, I was itching for an adventure.
At the time, my wife and I were newly married. I had just finished an internship in the greater Houston, TX area, and I was ready to get away from the bland and boring sprawl of Houston's suburbs.
So, I took the first offer with a ticket out of Texas, and my wife and I moved to river-town 40 minutes north of Grand Central Station.
Over the next year we lived our adventure. We explored NYC on the weekends, watched shows, ate amazing food, raised our puppy, and travelled all over New England.
And for the next 4 years, we moved states each year. The adventure continued.
After NYC we moved to Jupiter, Florida, and lived near some of the best beaches in the country. The next year was Baltimore, Maryland, full of history and where our oldest daughter was born. Next was Cleveland, Ohio, where we had a country home with almost 2 acres and all the harsh winters we ever wanted.
But during our time in Ohio, my wife and I felt a growing, internal throbbing that we couldn't shake. The adventure became lackluster, and we ached for family, community, and rootedness.
When I purchased my ticket out of Texas, I didn't realize it was a 2-way ticket. But turns out it was. In the summer of 2020, we moved back to Houston, TX. Back to the bland and boring suburbia I swore I would never return to.
The Magnificence of the Mundane
If you've ever read the "Alchemist", you're probably recognizing that the author stole my story. (*Spoilers*) I had set out on my adventure, only to find that what I was looking for was located where I had left.
The magnificent journey ended where it started: the mundane place of home.
Too often we make this same mistake in evaluating our work, labors, and efforts for the Kingdom of God. We expect a grand adventure, with arks to build, lands to leave, giants to slay, and walls to rebuild.
While certainly these types of glories come in different seasons, most of us find ourselves with responsibilities that tether us to home. Raising children. Providing for families. Eating around a dinner table. The humdrum normal life of a church community. Conversations with our neighbors. Regular citizenship in a local place.
The efforts in the mundane, done with one eye to God's glory and the other to all your normal responsibilities, are magnificent. We cannot overlook the impact these mostly unnoticed efforts have on building the Kingdom of God.
That's the mission behind Credo Threads. We want to capture the mundane moments and highlight how magnificent they are. We want to inspire faithful Christian living, so that generations will live for His Name's sake.
Keep laboring faithfully in the mundane. You are doing something magnificent.