Breakfast on the Beach

When life gets busy I get blind. When life becomes nothing more than a trail of receipts and half done to-do lists I grow weary. I desire a life full of abundant joy and whimsy. Yet, so often my life doesn’t reflect my desires.

A few years ago I read a story about a monk named Brother Lawrence who fixed shoes. Talk about a stinky job. Day after day his only goal was to sew tattered holes. “Certainly there is nothing about fixing shoes that is whimsical or holy,” I thought. As I continued to read the account of his life, I realized I could not have been more wrong. It was through Brother Lawrence’s ordinary tasks that he experienced God the most. In one of his letters he shared,

“We ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed.”

So often, we try and escape our daily rhythms and the little things in life in search of what we believe is truly Holy. Yet, Brother Lawrence teaches us that it is through our everyday living that we experience Jesus the most. So often, we get caught up in busyness and we start to become blind to how God is at work around us and miss opportunities to experience him.

We don’t have to hustle to find what is holy. We don’t have to strive to find Jesus.

Jesus meets you at the kitchen sink.

Jesus meets you on your living room couch.

Jesus meets you while you are repairing shoes.

Jesus meets you while you are working out.

Jesus meets you right where you are and desires to transform every bit of your life.

Let me remind you that your daily living is beautiful and holy.

Reading your child a bedtime story- holy.

Fixing a meal- holy.

Walking around your neighborhood- holy.

Waking up- holy.

Do you know what Jesus did soon after raising from the dead and defeating death once and for all? He makes his disciples breakfast. Check it out in John 21.

11 Simon Peter went up and dragged the net to land, full of large fish, one hundred and fifty-three; and although there were so many, the net was not broken. 12 Jesus said to them, “Come and eat breakfast.” Yet none of the disciples dared ask Him, “Who are You?”—knowing that it was the Lord.13 Jesus then came and took the bread and gave it to them, and likewise the fish.

After the most significant and powerful moment in all eternity, Jesus shows up at the beach and calls his fisherman friends to come enjoy some breakfast with him. A simply ordinary act is turned holy.

Receipts and to-do lists become ways to love Him more. To have a life full of joy and whimsy, I only need to fix my eyes on Jesus and realize He is with me.

He joins me at the kitchen sink and the altar. Where does Jesus desire to join you, today?