Living for Eternity in the Ordinary
The space between Christmas and New Year feels oddly hollow, doesn't it? The wrapping paper sits crumpled in trash bags. The excitement has faded. Family has returned home. And tomorrow morning, you wake up to the same tensions, the same financial pressures, the same health concerns that were there before the holiday lights went up.
What if this in-between time is actually when the real work of Christmas begins?
The Long Wait
In Luke 2:22-38, we encounter two remarkable people who lived in what felt like God's waiting room. Simeon and Anna weren't young and energetic. They were old, tired, and living in a world that had heard nothing from heaven for four hundred years. No prophets. No miracles. Just silence and the grinding oppression of Roman occupation.
Yet these two refused to let their circumstances write the final chapter of their story.
The text tells us that Simeon was "waiting for the consolation of Israel." That word consolation means comfort, the kind that comes when God himself shows up to dry the tears of his people. But here's what's striking: Simeon wasn't waiting for his circumstances to improve. He wasn't waiting for Rome to fall or for his body to feel young again. He was waiting for God to act.
Most of us are addicts to the immediate. We think we'll finally be happy when we get the promotion, when we get married, when the kids leave home, when we can retire. We're waiting for the consolation of circumstances rather than the consolation of God.
The Tyranny of Now
We live as horizontal thinkers, convinced our biggest problems are horizontal: our finances, our politics, our relationships. And while these things matter, they're not ultimate. Simeon lived vertically. His circumstances were bleak, but he refused to let them have the final word on reality.
Here's the truth most of us miss: God's love isn't proven by your circumstances. God's love is proven by his promises.
When you lie awake at 2 a.m., what occupies your mind? What do you believe will finally make your life work? If your joy rises and falls with how your week went, you're not living for eternity. You're enslaved to time, trapped in what we might call the tyranny of the immediate.
Living for eternity means you stop interpreting God's love based on your circumstances and start interpreting your circumstances based on God's character and promises.
Seeing the Eternal in the Ordinary
Picture the scene: The Jerusalem temple on an ordinary day, thousands of people milling about. Dozens of poor couples bringing their newborns for the required sacrifices. Joseph and Mary walk in, nobodies, really. They're so poor they can only afford two pigeons instead of a lamb. Jesus is an eight-day-old baby, probably crying, needing to be fed and changed.
Thousands of people walked right past them that day. Priests, scholars, religious professionals, all too busy, too distracted, too focused on their own agendas to notice that the Creator of the universe had just entered the building.
But Simeon? The Spirit nudged him. He looked at a peasant baby and saw the King of Glory.
Here's what Simeon understood: God almost always packages his glory in ordinary wrapping paper.
We miss the eternal because we're looking for the spectacular. We think living for eternity means doing something big and impressive. So we treat our ordinary lives as if they don't really count, just waiting for the real stuff to start.
But Simeon lived for eternity by being spiritually awake while walking through a crowded courtyard on an ordinary Tuesday. If the Holy Spirit of the living God actually lives inside you, how can you possibly live an ordinary life?
That difficult coworker isn't just an obstacle to your productivity—they're an eternal soul created in God's image. Changing diapers, sitting in mind-numbing meetings, doing taxes—these can be acts of worship when done in the presence of the King.
The problem isn't that God is absent. The problem is that we're not looking.
The Freedom of Being Dismissed
When Simeon finally held Jesus, he prayed words that reveal a profound spiritual freedom: "Sovereign Lord, you may now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation."
Think about how radical that is. Simeon essentially said, "Okay, God. I'm ready to die now."
In our culture, we do everything possible to avoid thinking about death. We're terrified of the end because we've invested everything in the beginning and the middle. But Simeon had held eternity in his arms, and because he'd held the eternal, he could let go of the temporary.
Living for eternity means you have what might be called a "dismissed" spirit. You're dismissed from the need to be right in every argument. You're dismissed from the need to prove yourself with career success. You're dismissed from the fear of what people think.
Most of our anxiety comes from wanting to be God: wanting to control outcomes, know the future, orchestrate circumstances. But the moment we stop trying to play God and truly trust in his sovereignty, we experience profound release.
The Cost and the Practice
Yet Simeon's prophecy took a sharp turn. He warned Mary that "a sword will pierce your own soul." Living for eternity isn't cute or precious. It's costly. To live for the eternal kingdom in a temporary world will make you, as Simeon said, "a sign that will be spoken against."
When you choose integrity over a profitable shortcut, it pierces your bottom line. When you choose forgiveness, it pierces your pride. When you choose service over entertainment, it pierces your comfort.
Then we meet Anna, a widow who had spent decades in the temple, worshiping night and day, fasting and praying. She had every reason to be bitter, to focus on her own survival and comfort. Instead, she practiced for eternity.
Anna knew something most of us haven't figured out: The presence of God is more satisfying than all the comforts of this world combined.
She didn't wait for heaven to start worshiping. She worshiped her way toward heaven. How many of us are practicing for heaven? Or are we so practiced at earth that we'd honestly be bored if heaven started today?
Living by Two Clocks
Imagine carrying two watches. One measures your deadlines, your aging body, your shrinking opportunities. If that's the only clock you're watching, you'll live in constant anxiety and eventual despair.
The other watch measures meaning, the weight of God's glory in your ordinary moments, the growth of your character, the consolation that's coming.
Simeon and Anna lived by the eternal clock. They knew that at any moment, the eternal could break into the temporary. And it did, in the form of a baby who needed his diaper changed.
This week, when you feel overwhelmed by the immediate, try this practice: First, identify the temporary. Say out loud, "This is temporary." The traffic, the conflict, the financial pressure, the political chaos, all temporary.
Second, identify the eternal. Ask yourself, "Where is the eternal in this moment?" The soul of your child is eternal. The character being formed in you is eternal. The opportunity to show grace is eternal. The presence of the Holy Spirit right now, wherever you are, is eternal.
Christmas happened so we could stop being mere mortals just trying to survive until the weekend. It happened so we could become people fully alive to the eternal breaking into every ordinary moment.
The same salvation Simeon held is offered to you today. And once you've truly grasped that in Christ you have everything you need for time and for eternity, you'll find you can release everything else. You can finally live the life you were created for, a life that sees every moment as pregnant with eternal significance, a life that worships in the ordinary, a life that waits with hope for the consolation that's coming.
What if this in-between time is actually when the real work of Christmas begins?
The Long Wait
In Luke 2:22-38, we encounter two remarkable people who lived in what felt like God's waiting room. Simeon and Anna weren't young and energetic. They were old, tired, and living in a world that had heard nothing from heaven for four hundred years. No prophets. No miracles. Just silence and the grinding oppression of Roman occupation.
Yet these two refused to let their circumstances write the final chapter of their story.
The text tells us that Simeon was "waiting for the consolation of Israel." That word consolation means comfort, the kind that comes when God himself shows up to dry the tears of his people. But here's what's striking: Simeon wasn't waiting for his circumstances to improve. He wasn't waiting for Rome to fall or for his body to feel young again. He was waiting for God to act.
Most of us are addicts to the immediate. We think we'll finally be happy when we get the promotion, when we get married, when the kids leave home, when we can retire. We're waiting for the consolation of circumstances rather than the consolation of God.
The Tyranny of Now
We live as horizontal thinkers, convinced our biggest problems are horizontal: our finances, our politics, our relationships. And while these things matter, they're not ultimate. Simeon lived vertically. His circumstances were bleak, but he refused to let them have the final word on reality.
Here's the truth most of us miss: God's love isn't proven by your circumstances. God's love is proven by his promises.
When you lie awake at 2 a.m., what occupies your mind? What do you believe will finally make your life work? If your joy rises and falls with how your week went, you're not living for eternity. You're enslaved to time, trapped in what we might call the tyranny of the immediate.
Living for eternity means you stop interpreting God's love based on your circumstances and start interpreting your circumstances based on God's character and promises.
Seeing the Eternal in the Ordinary
Picture the scene: The Jerusalem temple on an ordinary day, thousands of people milling about. Dozens of poor couples bringing their newborns for the required sacrifices. Joseph and Mary walk in, nobodies, really. They're so poor they can only afford two pigeons instead of a lamb. Jesus is an eight-day-old baby, probably crying, needing to be fed and changed.
Thousands of people walked right past them that day. Priests, scholars, religious professionals, all too busy, too distracted, too focused on their own agendas to notice that the Creator of the universe had just entered the building.
But Simeon? The Spirit nudged him. He looked at a peasant baby and saw the King of Glory.
Here's what Simeon understood: God almost always packages his glory in ordinary wrapping paper.
We miss the eternal because we're looking for the spectacular. We think living for eternity means doing something big and impressive. So we treat our ordinary lives as if they don't really count, just waiting for the real stuff to start.
But Simeon lived for eternity by being spiritually awake while walking through a crowded courtyard on an ordinary Tuesday. If the Holy Spirit of the living God actually lives inside you, how can you possibly live an ordinary life?
That difficult coworker isn't just an obstacle to your productivity—they're an eternal soul created in God's image. Changing diapers, sitting in mind-numbing meetings, doing taxes—these can be acts of worship when done in the presence of the King.
The problem isn't that God is absent. The problem is that we're not looking.
The Freedom of Being Dismissed
When Simeon finally held Jesus, he prayed words that reveal a profound spiritual freedom: "Sovereign Lord, you may now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation."
Think about how radical that is. Simeon essentially said, "Okay, God. I'm ready to die now."
In our culture, we do everything possible to avoid thinking about death. We're terrified of the end because we've invested everything in the beginning and the middle. But Simeon had held eternity in his arms, and because he'd held the eternal, he could let go of the temporary.
Living for eternity means you have what might be called a "dismissed" spirit. You're dismissed from the need to be right in every argument. You're dismissed from the need to prove yourself with career success. You're dismissed from the fear of what people think.
Most of our anxiety comes from wanting to be God: wanting to control outcomes, know the future, orchestrate circumstances. But the moment we stop trying to play God and truly trust in his sovereignty, we experience profound release.
The Cost and the Practice
Yet Simeon's prophecy took a sharp turn. He warned Mary that "a sword will pierce your own soul." Living for eternity isn't cute or precious. It's costly. To live for the eternal kingdom in a temporary world will make you, as Simeon said, "a sign that will be spoken against."
When you choose integrity over a profitable shortcut, it pierces your bottom line. When you choose forgiveness, it pierces your pride. When you choose service over entertainment, it pierces your comfort.
Then we meet Anna, a widow who had spent decades in the temple, worshiping night and day, fasting and praying. She had every reason to be bitter, to focus on her own survival and comfort. Instead, she practiced for eternity.
Anna knew something most of us haven't figured out: The presence of God is more satisfying than all the comforts of this world combined.
She didn't wait for heaven to start worshiping. She worshiped her way toward heaven. How many of us are practicing for heaven? Or are we so practiced at earth that we'd honestly be bored if heaven started today?
Living by Two Clocks
Imagine carrying two watches. One measures your deadlines, your aging body, your shrinking opportunities. If that's the only clock you're watching, you'll live in constant anxiety and eventual despair.
The other watch measures meaning, the weight of God's glory in your ordinary moments, the growth of your character, the consolation that's coming.
Simeon and Anna lived by the eternal clock. They knew that at any moment, the eternal could break into the temporary. And it did, in the form of a baby who needed his diaper changed.
This week, when you feel overwhelmed by the immediate, try this practice: First, identify the temporary. Say out loud, "This is temporary." The traffic, the conflict, the financial pressure, the political chaos, all temporary.
Second, identify the eternal. Ask yourself, "Where is the eternal in this moment?" The soul of your child is eternal. The character being formed in you is eternal. The opportunity to show grace is eternal. The presence of the Holy Spirit right now, wherever you are, is eternal.
Christmas happened so we could stop being mere mortals just trying to survive until the weekend. It happened so we could become people fully alive to the eternal breaking into every ordinary moment.
The same salvation Simeon held is offered to you today. And once you've truly grasped that in Christ you have everything you need for time and for eternity, you'll find you can release everything else. You can finally live the life you were created for, a life that sees every moment as pregnant with eternal significance, a life that worships in the ordinary, a life that waits with hope for the consolation that's coming.
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