Seeing Beyond the Mundane
Did you know mundane structures communicate real-life lessons to us every day? Here is an example of seeing beyond what you see in the room of an unknown author’s home.
“When I woke up this morning, I asked myself: What are the secrets to success in life? I found the answer right in my room. The fan said, ‘Be cool.’ The roof said: ‘Aim high.’ The window said: ‘See the world.’ The clock said: ‘Every minute is precious.’ The mirror said: ‘Reflect before you act.’ The calendar said: ‘Be up to date.’ The door said: ‘Push hard for your goals.’ And last but not least, the carpet said: ‘Kneel, pray, and have a nice day.’”
I like how the unknown authors sees things that other people don’t see. So, let’s go on an adventure. Let’s view your local post office differently. There are few places more charged with human interest than a post office. Think of all the good news and unwelcome news, joy or sorrow, despair or delight one ugly mail bag holds every day, all year. In one day, lives can change from one letter or one notice.
The post office near me is not a remodeled, contemporary post office. It is very plain, and the post offices’ small rooms look very dated. I would not connect it with anything exciting or exotic. The post office has just a few counters, a heap of post office boxes, and a few attendants trying to attend to the parade of people lined up for service. However, there is more to a post office than meets the eye.
A post office is not a source; it is only a medium, a vehicle for delivering letters and messages. Post offices don’t create messages. Your post office only relays the mail from the creator to the recipient. In a real sense, Christians are human post offices. We are relaying daily messages or letters from God to earth. Christians are carriers and couriers. God’s messages don’t come from us, they go through us to others.
What type of messages and letters do we convey from God to others? Are the letters we convey to others God’s letters or our letters? Are the letters we pass along to the recipients full of truth, hope, wisdom, and love? Do we have a word worth listening to, a faith worth embracing, and a life worth imitating? Or are the letters we deliver old worn-out commercial circulars that interest just a few people?
Author Vance Havner says, “Every Christian is a postmaster for God. They must pass out good news from above. If the postmaster kept all the mail and refused to give the mail out, they would soon be in trouble. Some Christians keep God’s blessings within their little lives, and soon there is mail congestion. God does not send us good letters from the heavenly headquarters merely for our enjoyment. Some of God’s letters are to us, but most belong to other human beings. We must pass them on.”
Many of God’s people are only concerned with redecorating the post office, spending hours painting it, and keeping it looking nice. But people don’t come to see the post office. People come for the mail. It’s nice to have a clean post office. However, keeping our lives clean is only tidying up the office so we may carry on with God’s business. It’s all about delivering the mail, in your corner or space in the world, at your home post office. Why? God’s words create God’s world.
So, keep your post office clean, but don’t make your clean post office more important than delivering the mail. God’s mail is full of God’s word, God’s wisdom, and God’s wonders. Soon people start their own God-inspired letters to your post office to mail to others. Being a courier and a carrier is a beautiful thing, but one must be it to see ‘it’ to be ‘it.
There you go. I hope you never see the room in your house, your post office, and yourself the same way again. The Bible says Jesus’ followers are God’s letters, living letters, to everyone around us. So if you’re a Christian, God gives His benefits to us so God can get those benefits through us.
Come to think of it; you letter carriers out there are not mundane. On the contrary, I think you’re magnificent.