Celebration

I told you a couple of weeks ago that our pastors are delivering a sermon series inspired by A.J. Jacobs' book, The Year of Living Biblicly. Apparently, in the book, Mr. Jacobs completes several quests in his effort to follow the Bible as literally as possible for an entire year, so our pastoral staff has provided weekly quests for us, giving suggestions for how we might live out our faith biblicly in a certain area. Next Sunday, the sermon will be on Celebration, and the second suggestion for our quest this week is:

Turn a Chore into a Party
Got laundry to fold? Dishes to wash? Closets to organize?
Put on the loudest, most energetic music you have - sing and dance while you work!
Make your efforts a song of celebration to the Lord!

I was skeptical. In my experience, chores are to be endured, not enjoyed. While it's true that I have favorite chores (and, by extension, least favorite chores), even my favorite household tasks are no cause for celebration, and I certainly have never felt joy while completing them.

But, hey, I'm sorta, kinda open minded, sometimes, so I thought I'd give it a try. My first chance came on Sunday afternoon (hey, I already told you I have trouble keeping Sabbath), when I was putting together a couple of casseroles to freeze for future business trips. Cody was cutting potatoes, Logan was dumping potatoes into the big bowl, I was browning ground beef (because we just can't seem to find hamburger around here) and cutting onions and green pepper, and Scott and Caleb were supervising and encouraging, when I said, "hey, we should turn on the loud music and turn this chore into a celebration." So we did.

And I discovered that there's something to that. As I was singing and dancing along with the radio, doing something that I don't necessarily dread, but certainly don't enjoy either, I found that the drudgery turned to lightheartedness. And I noticed that while typically doing chores drains my energy, doing this one as a celebration gave me more energy. So I started thinking, what would it look like, what would my life be like, if I could really do everything I do with an attitude of celebration?

Right. I'm not perfect, so I'm not able to find joy in everything--yet--but I'm trying to hold on to that attitude of celebration, to remember that I am so blessed, to remember that everything I do, everything I am, can be and should be a song of celebration to the Lord.

Whatever you do, work at it wholeheartedly as though you were doing it for the Lord and not merely for people. Colossians 3:23