Finding God in the Ordinary
by Rebecca Caswell-Speight, Minister of Families and Faith Formation
This summer, our kids will journey through the story of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe written by C. S. Lewis as we host a themed Vacation Bible School. In preparation for the weeks ahead and in hopes of inviting our whole congregation into that spirit of imagination and faith, I want to share a brief devotional thought inspired by the story.
In Lewis’ book, Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy Pevensie have, like many children during their time, been sent away from the war zones to stay in a large country house with their uncle, an old professor named Digory Kirke. While playing hide-and-seek with her siblings, Lucy discovers a wardrobe at the end of a large empty room. She cautiously steps into it, thinking it the perfect place to hide. Lucy works her way around all the fur coats as she steps in and moves toward the back. She finds herself moving deeper and deeper into the wardrobe. She curiously continues until she finds herself out of the coats and into a snowy wood. She doesn’t know it yet, but this new discovery has opened her to a world of new adventure.
What appears to be an ordinary closet is a portal to another world. The inside is bigger than the outside. Lucy squeezes herself through the ordinary to find the extraordinary, teaching a biblical truth that the spiritual world is among us, even if it doesn’t look like it.
In Luke 17, verse 21, Jesus tells the Pharisees that the Kingdom of God is not arriving with observable, physical signs, but rather is already present in their midst. Like the Pharisees, we often expect something dramatic. We want visible signs, a political power or an unmistakable spectacle. But instead, Jesus responds with something surprising: “The kingdom of God is in your midst.”
In other words, it is already here. God’s reign is not confined to a future event, but overlaps with our everyday lives. The spiritual world is not far away; it is closer than we think. Sometimes all that is needed are eyes to see and a heart willing to recognize God’s presence.
Today, instead of asking, “Where is God?” consider asking, “Where is God already at work around me?” You may discover, like Lucy, that the kingdom has already been nearer than you realized.