offering the ordinary

these words, from a friend this week, came to me as a much-needed challenge...

              "so here's what i want you to do, God helping you:  Take your everyday, ordinary life--your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life--and place it before God as an offering.  embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.  don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking.  instead, fix your attention on God.  you'll be changed from the inside out.  readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it.  unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you...
because life isn't always sunshine and roses, but it's the times when it's not and we offer it anyway that are beautiful in God's sight."

she's so right, you know?
so often we see our grand acts of service, our "big" sacrifices as our gifts to God.
we see large bonus checks and generous holiday gifts and lucrative promotions as His gifts to us.

we fail to offer our ordinary as gifts to Him.
we fail to recognize our ordinary as gifts from Him.

i want to become more conscious in my daily life...more God-conscious...
recognizing His gifts...all His gifts...
offering my gifts...all my gifts...the magnificent...and the mundane.
because really and truly, it is all for Him...and it is all from Him.

{my friend that i mention above is Joye Dicharry...her challenging words can be found under her IG name @joyefuljourney and on her blog The Joyeful Journey.  the first part of her quote is from The Message.}