How Remaining Faithful Led to Joy by Joylene M. Bailey

 

"What will you do in the mundane days of faithfulness?"

- Martin Luther -

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My January post told the story of The Lone Tree near Swift Current, Saskatchewan. How it stood alone, remaining faithful to its purpose even when nobody was there to see it.

I'm still intrigued by the quote above.

Mundane = ordinary, banal, normal, humdrum.

Well, my year was anything but ordinary in the "normal" sense of the word, as we moved from our home in the city to the country home we'd built. The tasks involved in moving see-sawed from excitingly whirlwind to tediously mundane. Packing and culling and what-do-I-do-with-Grandma's-wedding-dress kinds of decisions.

Through it all, though, I believe I was faithful in trudging forward even when every aching bone in my body cried for me to give up.

Faithfulness can look different for different people. For some, just getting out of bed day after day could be counted as being faithful. It often means doing the hard thing or the boring thing over and over and over, even if it's just packing that next box.

I began the year intent on being faithful. Faithful to my calling as a wife, mother, grandmother, writer, homemaker. Faithful to keep putting one foot in front of the other to accomplish whatever it took to get us moved. But I found as the year went on, I spent a lot of time thinking about God's faithfulness. In part, His faithfulness in fulfilling the promise, the dream, of our new home, something we'd been dreaming for more than a dozen years.

Now that we're moved in and mostly settled, I look back at the year and see all the many, many times He was faithful. Faithful in giving us the best, even when we couldn't see it. 

We were ready to put the shovel in the ground in March 2020, but then you-know-what happened. All of our plans and dreams seemed to fall through. But God brought us to a new builder: a stranger to us, but fellow believer, he was someone who understood our vision and worked with us to see it completed. Yes, we had to go back to the drawing board - literally - and that took loads of time. But God had it all worked out.

I'm learning more and more that God's sense of time and my sense of time are worlds apart. Yes, I know that all the best things take time, but I still want it in MY time. That's what I expect. Sure, I can handle waiting for a few months if that was in my plan all along. Waiting any longer doesn't come naturally to me.

God's timing, however, doesn't seem to work that way. I don't think it's linear at all. Maybe not even counted in days and weeks, months and years. It's HIS timing. Which takes into account all of past, present, and future history. It is perfect timing and I'm very grateful for it.

In future, I need to trust that His time is the RIGHT time. No matter the week or the year, it will happen at just the right time in history. His time. And He is faithful to His time.

We're so glad that this home was built in His perfect timing. It's so much better than anything we had hoped and planned. He knew better. I should have known that all along.

So you see, this year as I worked at being faithful, I was brought to His faithfulness. Reflecting on His constant faithfulness brought me to gratefulness. And gratefulness led to joy.

"Even when circumstances cloud our view, God's sovereignty is strong enough to hold us. No matter how loud the noise of the chaos around us seems, He always hears our cry for help.

Look past the noisy crowd, friend. Trust His faithfulness. Stand on His promises. Lean in and let the nearness of His presence steady your heart."

(From one of the devotionals in She Reads Truth Bible)

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Joy writes from her new home in rural Alberta where she lives with The Cowboy, and Chara the joyful Swiss Mountain Puppy. Find more of her Joy-infused writing at Scraps of Joy. 

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All landscape photos from Pixabay