Joy pt. 3: Mud-pies & Sandcastles

All of life is learning. From the classroom to the distraction; from the Church to the house; from the coffee shop to the car, everything, all of it, contains teachable moments. But we don’t approach life that way.
We see life as the venue and the stage of performing our knowledge in front of the audience that ought to adore us. Being the spectacle not the spectator, being the star not the first-row (let alone the back-row).
But it’s hard to be the performer, the star, and the spectacle. It’s unsustainable. It’s exhausting. It’s killing.
Think about it, if life was seen as millions of opportunities to learn as opposed to your ‘special performance’ then resting and finding joy in the little graces would be comparatively easy. But if all of life is your ‘breakthrough moment’ then all of life is critically important and exhausting.
To be sure life is important and there are times were God uses you critically, but it is not always your show… In fact even when you are the linchpin you are not the star, you are used.
So the classroom is opportunity though monotonous; the happily welcomed distractor is opportunity though wonderful; the drive is opportunity though familiar; the book is opportunity though tiring; the friends are opportunity though fun.
All of life is learning, because all of life is grace. We live and breathe and have our movement because of God’s incredibly free and unflinching grace. So how does this apply to joy? Simply.
Mud-pies and sandcastles rather Mud-pies to sandcastles. Seeing every moment as opportunity to absorb knowledge creates joy. Child like joy in seeing things differently as if for the first time. So the monotonous moves from mud-pie to sandcastle. The act of changing a tire becomes fascinating as you watch your hands maneuver and work with just a thought.
Grace. It defines our joy. It ignites our joy. It moves us to worship. So simply stated our valleys and our low tides, our lack of joy is because we see the sandcastles of grace as mud-pies of familiarity. Lewis was, and is, right, “We are far to easily pleased.”