Routine

There is just so much that He could use out of me – if only I would add Him into the routine of my everyday life…

Saint Luke Drawing the Virgin (Rogier van der Weyden)

I love a good routine.  I can map out my week in perfect little parcels.  On Mondays I do those things and other things are done on Tuesdays.  On Wednesdays there were other tasks and the list goes on through the remainder of the week.  I have plans for weekends and hate sitting idle.  I am an out and about sort of person and there is a tonne of work to get done.  And the work itself will never be finished.  I can never get to the end of my tasks so to speak.

And I like this in many ways.  I like the feeling that I have lots to do and that I can fit things into my day like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.  There is some comfort in that.  Now, perhaps I am actually experiencing some form of abnormal mental health condition that I am quietly managing in this way?  Perhaps there are psychologists who will read these words and think to themselves, ah, yes, based on this description I have a clear (or relatively clear) diagnosis?  But the reality is that this is who I am and how I am – this is how God made me – and it is glorious.

I am grateful to Him for this – not because I am any better than other people – but because I am different.

We are all different.  Saint Simon Peter had such great love for God but was a blunderer.  He jumped into the sea and walked on water until he forgot to have faith and started to sink and needed saving.  Saint Simon Peter promised to die for Christ and then denied Him three times before the cock crew.  But Saint Simon Peter had such great love for God!  Saint Paul the Apostle was a great preacher and a great writer.  He brought a different set of skills to God and allowed God to use those as he willed.  He was an educated man – a man well-versed in the scriptures.  His razer-sharp intelligence was of use to God in the writing of early texts.  Saint Luke the Apostle brought his experience as a gentile to the Holy Church.  He was able to explain Christ to the Gentiles, who understood very little (if any) of Jewish faith.

And all those differences – some who were very clever, others who were very passionate, and still others who were from different backgrounds – worked together in a beautiful weave that allowed God to craft His Holy Church.

And when I consider my own skills and talents today, I am quite overcome by the use God could make of me – if only I submitted to His Holy Will.  You see, there is just so much that He could use out of me – if only I would add Him into the routine of my everyday life…

For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.