Sweeping Discovery

Long days ago, I lost my prayer list. I had scoured the house for it--looking all through my Bible where it belonged, in my journal, on my dresser, in my going-to-town bag, in my go-to-the-hospital bag, and probably other bags, and all over the place. 

No prayer list was to be found.  

 

Prayer lists are not my badge of spirituality, though they may be for someone else. They are just a little crutch I use to help my poor praying ability, so that I remember more people than just a few, and so that I pray regularly for people who are important to me.

Well, yesterday I was feeling well enough after surgery to actually clean my bathroom and sweep the kitchen floor. And that is when I found it--my prayer list. 

It had fallen back behind the bench against the wall under the table. 

Which clearly describes to my readers how long it has been since I swept under the bench against the wall under the table. But if you won't tell about this, I won't tell how long it's been since you swept some part of your house, either.  

But anyway, as I pulled that prayer list out, it occurred to me, that had I not been doing the simple, mundane task of sweeping my kitchen floor with a broom, I would not have found my prayer list. 

I could have tried to pray a long time or read several chapters of my Bible and never found it. 

But in the middle of a lowly task, I found something I needed.  

To me, it was such a good example of how God uses the simple, ordinary things of our human lives to accomplish His plan.  I see more and more what a mistake it is to think we have to be super spiritual to please God, to think that sweeping a floor or hanging laundry is somehow less important to God than sitting in a devout rocker pondering Galatians or Ephesians. 

I have heard story after story of people like Praying Hyde who hid in a hollow log for three days praying until God lifted the burden and revival came to his current situation;

or like Watchman Nee, who was a super spiritual Christian evangelist in China; or an old friend, Anita Brechbill who would rise at 4 every morning to spend two hours praying. And I would feel like I must be a pretty poor Christian to need to sleep until 7 in the morning because of being up till 11 at night, and having to spend all of my waking hours tending little children and babies. 

 

It did not feel spiritual, but it was, as I minded them from the time they awoke to the time they went to bed. I made sure my family had breakfast and lunch and supper, followed a structured time frame for home school, and during summer, would fill the family's time with finding produce, cucumbers for pickles, apples for pies and sauce, and pumpkins for pies and cows. I kept the children busy and happy and watched over almost constantly. 

 

It did not feel like I got much alone time with God; it felt like maybe He was behind the curtain somewhere a lot of the time. But when I needed help and called upon Him, He was there; over and over He comforted me that simply doing His will in the stress of raising a family was what pleased Him.  That the simple prayers we prayed together as a family were worth as much to Him as hours on my knees alone in a closet somewhere.

Sometimes I need closet prayers, I really do; and my prayer list helps with that. But it was not until I did the simple task of sweeping the kitchen floor with my little old broom that I found that list. And the lesson it taught me was a good one.