Holiness in the Margins
This week is a big one for our family. Not because we’re going on vacation or because we’re getting a new puppy. Not because we’re moving homes or having a new baby. This week is big because we’re changing a small routine. You see, for the past two and a half years, our daughters have had their own bedrooms, but with the addition of a little brother who recently received an eviction notice from mom and dad’s bedroom, our “little Lu” is moving into her big sister’s room.
While in reality this move could be measured in the mere few feet of a hallway – it’s actually colossal. The sacred bedtime routine must now be reshaped, the silence of a bedroom with a single residence is now interrupted by joint giggles and squeals of delight, and, as evidenced by this morning, the chatting and playing now begins much earlier – like 5:45am earlier.
At the risk of sounding like I’m complaining, I share this simply to point at the fact that life is beautifully erratic. Yes, there are seasons of linear. But for each of us, there are ebbs and flows, peaks and valleys, routines and changes. Like it or not, even the littlest things have big impacts on our days and weeks. Sure – adults are more steady, more regulated than toddlers – but toddlers show us, often with a tantrum or two, that change is hard. And just like a toddler needs a parent to help guide them through colossal hallway sized changes, so we need God’s help. This is because, while from our vantage our lives may be full of mountain sized wax and wane – from God’s vantage our changes and challenges remain at sea level.
This morning my wife had written and stuck the notes shown above on our kitchen window, which is not uncommon in our house. They are a way that she reminds herself to take every moment captive – even the hard ones – for Christlikeness. And they were a reminder to me that holiness doesn’t just happen in a vacuum. It doesn’t happen in sterile environments devoid of change.
Holiness is developed in the margins of chaos – within the busy schedules, the rushing out the door, the quick breakfasts, the two minute catch up conversations, and all the decisions made moment to moment. Holiness is developed in the margins of change – job transitions, new routines, recoveries from illness or surgeries. Holiness is developed even in the margins of the mundane – the daily chores, the shepherding of children, the dinner table conversations, and the getting ready for sleep. In all of it, God has something to teach us if we would look to Him and seek to take our every moment captive for His glory and our good.
Perhaps the biggest changes we make towards Christlikeness actually happen in the smallest moments.
“… take every thought captive to obey Christ.” – 2 Corinthians 10:5
In Christ’s Mercy,
Pastor Ryan A.