Ordinary (un)holy moments

[notice]A fortnightly devotional based on everyday experiences.[/notice]

If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you. Proverbs 25:21-22 (NIV)

It’s amazing what God can teach you while cutting broccoli.

Ever since I can remember my younger brother has been the one of those people who knows all my trigger points and can have me angry in a few seconds.

A few years ago we shared a flat together and while I was cutting broccoli I realised that the main reason my brother and I fight is because he is essentially narcissistic and lazy.

Problem is so am I.

- Advertisement -

Neither of us is prepared to serve the other; we both want to be served; we both want to be the most important person in our sibling relationship.

We are both consumed with sin.

I discovered at the time that I could prevent the quarterly fights between my brother and I.

I realised I could change my entire attitude towards my brother if I only prayed for him instead of dwelling on how annoying I found him.

It was not easy to pray for him.

I did not want to at first.

Nevertheless, I did begin to pray for him while I cut broccoli for supper one night.

I was very tempted to pray that God would give my brother a deep burning desire to do what I wanted him too.

I had to shrug off the idea that I was praying for my brother as a means to make him do what I wanted.

Instead I had to realise that my kitchen prayers were a way of allowing God to make my brother into what He wanted.

I had to realise that these prayers were not about me.

Sometimes I wonder if Jesus ever sits in heaven and prays kitchen prayers for me.

I wonder if he prays that my small, ordinary moments of life will somehow reflect his holiness and not my sin.

I think when Jesus looks at my life he must want to pray a lot.

I I imagine sometimes when he is scrubbing sin off yet another corner of my heart that he must sometimes want to bang the bucket too loudly and drop the scrubbing brush.

I do not think he does though because he is love and patience and good things.

I wish I could say that my brother and I never fought again. We did but we fought less frequently. We fought less over stupid stuff. 

I learnt that sometimes all that was need to stop a fight was for me to stop and pray before I opened my mouth.

I saw God changing my ordinary moments into holy ones.

Click to join movement

That evening while cutting broccoli God transformed supper preparation into a ritual of blessing and in the process he changed me.

What ordinary moments in your life is God transforming into Holy ones? Is their an ordinary moment in your life where prayer for someone else could change your entire relationship with them?