What Is Spiritual Work?

My official homeschooling uniform is raggedy shorts and a shirt that doesn’t smell (hopefully). I usually don’t have make up on, unless I’m going somewhere that day. (Every time my son hears me rattling in my make up bag, he asks me where I am going). My feet are hard and peely because I don’t wear socks and shoes in the house. I’m a terrible procrastinator. I’m addicted to that adrenalin rush you get when you save stuff until the very last minute, then the adrenalin kicks in, and I get stuff done.

A big part of my day is sitting on the couch reading aloud to my two kids. This has been our homeschooling routine since we started homeschooling. We’ve read hundreds of books: historical fiction, biographies, and classics. There we sit on the couch, just the three of us, reading and listening to great books.

When the kids were younger and we didn’t have gluten and dairy issues, I would often fix grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch with cut up apples. We always have a quiet time after lunch. (We’ve been in each others faces for the whole morning-we all need a break). By 3:00pm, I’m headed to the kitchen to start getting dinner ready.

We might throw in a load of laundry or two in the mix. A toilet or two, cleaned. Garbage emptied. Dishes done. (Never done perfectly, but eventually it gets done).

At the end of the day, I sometimes wonder what I did all day? Amidst the grilled cheese sandwiches, books and laundry, how have I changed the world?

I remember a comment a friend of mine made while we were in Bible study going over the story of Jesus turning water into wine. She said she always pictured Jesus in the corner glowing. But the story of Him turning the water into wine, made Him more human. His mother demanded He help them out with the running out of wine problem. He wasn’t going to do it, but then He obliged her and turned the water into wine. It wasn’t the turning water into wine that I could relate to. It was the arguing with your mother. Jesus really was human. Like my friend said Jesus wasn’t glowing in the corner being God. He was acting like a human.

Now Jesus is God. Yet when He lived on this planet, He walked around doing very human things. He got hungry, He got thirsty, He got tired, He got angry, and He got sad. That sounds just like my family: hungry, thirsty, tired, angry and sad. Just before Jesus left the planet, He prayed to God that He had done the Father’s will. Yet He hadn’t saved every soul, He hadn’t cured every disease in the world, He hadn’t raised everyone from the dead. He was leaving the planet while there still was disease, death, and sorrow in the world.

Jesus’ humanity makes me feel better about my own. My kids and I don’t spend the whole day singing hymns or on our knees praying. We don’t spend the whole day reading the Bible. We don’t wear long, brown monkish robes with bright halos hanging over our heads. I stand near my dining room table, in my raggedy shorts, staring at the half eaten grilled cheese sandwiches and know that I have done spiritual work. I have fed the hungry. I have given drink to the thirsty. I have put to bed the tired. I love, love, love what Amy Carmicheal said when a donor approached her to give money to her but said it must go for SPIRITUAL WORK.

“In her experience in India, she said, she found that souls were “more or less firmly attached to bodies.” Bodies require houses and therefore housecleaning: food and therefore cooking; clothes and therefore washing.” p. 157 The Shaping of a Christian Family by Elisabeth Elliot

My children’s soul attached bodies require all of the above. It felt like when the kids were little, I was constantly bathing chubby little bodies. It seemed like only after an hour, their clothes had been through a food fight and needed to be washed. Putting down toddlers for a nap was a very good work and the world should thank me for such things.

What am I saying? I am saying that doing the mundane work of taking care of my kids IS spiritual. I am a Christian and I do dishes! I am a Christian and I don’t read the Bible all day! I am a Christian and I have fed my children grilled cheese sandwiches! In the midst of my raggedy shorts wearing, clothes washing, cooking (often) unhealthy meals, I have been doing spiritual work and God is pleased with me! Thank you very much!