The peace of the ordinary

As my stress level began to rise on a morning perusal of facebook, twitter, and the latest news with everyone overreacting to everything, it occurred to me that the answer for the Christian in troubled times is the same as the answer for the Christian in calmer times. It's both boring and brilliant at the same time.  

1 Thessalonians 4:10b-12 "...But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one." In the main, God has called his people to live ordinary lives, simply, diligently, consistently doing the work he has given them to do. What might that look like on an ordinary day?

1. Get up.
2. Engage with God. (Pray, read his Word)
3. Love and care for your family. Point them to Jesus. Help them. Serve them. 
4. Fulfill your God-given role. Do your work for the day. Punch the clock. Make the bed. Do your school work. Change the diaper. Collect the garbage. Do the laundry. Perform the heart surgery (as I read this it occurs to me there are probably no heart surgeons reading this...ah well). Mow the lawn. Prep the sermon. Vacuum. Take the exam. Make dinner. Cut down the tree. Do the dishes.
5. Reflect the light of Christ to the people you interact with every day.
6. Go to bed and rest.

How is that the antidote to the stressful times in which we live? It simply tells us what's next. We don't have to wonder. We don't have to worry about what's happening in Washington. Get up and do the next thing. How good of God to design us to work, to do, to be active, and to rest. He doesn't call us to days of emptiness and nothing to do except scroll through our devices and their never-ending stream of "urgent" news and notifications. He calls us to get up and do the work he's given us to do. The beautiful humdrum monotony of the very good day-to-day work God has called us to diverts our attention away from the things that tend to trouble us so. Pursue that with all of our hearts and we might just find we have more peace when turmoil rages all around.

(You didn't hear me say Christians should be uniformed about current events. You didn't hear me say Christian's shouldn't be praying about troubling things in troubling times. You didn't here me say Christians can't use facebook and twitter. You didn't hear me say Christians can't or shouldn't engage in the public square. What did you hear me say? It's above. Feel free to read it again!)