Perseverance Through the Continuity

Day in and day out, waiting, worshipping, and walking before my Master.  This is how my days go, since there is not a lot of deviation in the basic contents of them.  I get up, weigh, make coffee, do this, get ready for work, drive there, do it, come home through similar traffic, some family time, perhaps a movie, then bed.  This is broken up every Tuesday with whatever gets piled into the week.  All the appointments, activities, or things that occur in the evening, happen on Tuesdays.  I'm not sure why.

The problem for me is that I would like the routine to be interesting.  I want something to do as a project.  I began keeping a spreadsheet of my daily weight change, created two line graphs, separated the sheets into a per month sort of thing, and added an annual summary page.  About an hour later, I needed another project.  I did our taxes (only owed $19 this year - amazing!).  Now I'm out of fun projects.  Notice that the project needs to be fun.  Sure I can do yard work, there's always yard work.  Sure I can find something that needs fixing around the house, there's always something.  I can always do laundry, always!  There is never a time when there is no laundry.  I want to do something else.  So does my wife, my daughter, my friends, other extended family, and most anyone reading this entry.  Seriously, who looks forward to laundry, yard work, and routine repetitive house chores?  So, nothing unusual there.

The trick I need to practice is to turn those things into worship.  The reason is that it is in those things, routine, daily, mundane, sometimes boring things, that perseverance really shows.  If I persevere through a project I enjoy, so what?  I mean great, but what then?  Can I persevere onto the next one?  So what?  Perseverance is really remarkable when it is through the mundane routines.  For instance, what seems to impress my managers/supervisors and other sundry bosses is calls per hour.  If I make around 16 calls to customers an hour, they are impressed.  Do I reach customers?  Who cares?  Do I sell stuff? Does it matter?  For some reason, if I sell but don't have those calls per hour, I'm still in trouble.  But when I make the calls per hour and sales are down, they are very understanding.  What's with that?  The only explanation I can come up with is that they really feel confident that if I am consistent with my calls, the sales will come.  They keep calling it a "numbers game", which it is if you care little for meeting customer's needs.  If I just look for that one customer, Mr. or Ms. Needlenhaystack, who just happens to need what I have when I call, then all will be well.  I just need to go through the rest of the "haystack" to find him/her...everyday...out loud.

That's enough complaining about work.  I actually like the work I do, it is other corporate mentality issues I have problems with.  Their perspective does point out something that Scripture also points out.  From God's perspective, spiritual maturity seems to be defined by perseverance.  It is the one who endures to the end who is saved.  I call it the theology of the last man standing, which is a very un-theological term, so don't pull it out on some poor unsuspecting theologian, they won't like it, or you.  It goes along with my "knot-hole theology", another term that can get you pelted with onions by upstanding respected theologians.  I admit, that I like (or made up) these terms partly for that very reason (it's a long, but not very interesting, story).  In essence, the theology of the last man standing says that the ones before the throne of God at the end of history are the ones who have been saved (you may call it MOTO theology).  I came up with it to use in arguments about whether someone can loose their salvation or not, which is why the onion throwing by otherwise respected theologians.  I get it from both sides, and is a form of entertainment I really enjoy, but don't recommend for everyone. 

One derivative of the theology of the last man standing (TOTLMS from here on) that is really important is the understanding that spiritual maturity comes in being persistent in faith, rather than in good deeds.  Faith is played out in belief that does not waver in the face of facts.  I say this because facts are not what a lot of people think they are.  Facts are the actual measurable events which have been observed and can be duplicated.  These are harmless to faith.  What damages faith is the subjective conclusions drawn by finite myopic human beings.  What happens is these facts are examined like clues.  Then corresponding connections to ducks begin to emerge into the conversation like, "If it walks like a duck..." or some other inane silly comment.

My alternative is to hold to my basic faith in my Master.  The essentials I cling to are that He exists, He knows my name, and it is up to Him to initiate and maintain a relationship between us.  If He exists as the One responsible for this universe, then I should also expect that He is inexplicable.  If He knows my name, then I should expect Him to know the other details of my life, no hiding on my part.  If the other two are true, and I can't see, touch, or otherwise sense His presence with my basic physical senses, then He would have to initiate and maintain any sort of relationship.  I believe the Bible presents such a Person, and that this Person has chosen to initiate the relationship through Jesus, and maintain it by His Spirit.  So, all the mundane boring tasks are done in the presence of the Maker of the universe, Who, my brother once pointed out, is still creating it.  This Maker knows my name, so my behavior is constantly before Him, and I have His attention.  I have to admit that changes these daily routines, but only to the degree I let my faith loose into my day.  That practice of faith makes my moments available to my Master in ways nothing else I do can.  So everything I do, dishes to laundry to phone calls, become opportunities for worship.  In fact I believe I have some dishes to do right now.