Posted by Debbie Schwab

It might be true that the sun rises regularly because he never gets tired of rising. His routine might be due, not to a lifelessness, but to a rush of life.

The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony.

It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore. – GK Chesterton, Orthodoxy

One of the ways we misinterpret God is by assuming that He exists only in the shocking: the changing of plans, the healing of disease, or the moments of perspective change. The truth is God is at work everywhere, at all times. This means that the most redundant, expected parts of our life are as much a part of God’s revelation as miracles and surprises. In this, we not only minimize our joy, but we create a wrong idea of God; we think of the only things that will please Him are the things that impress us.

As we get ready to celebrate Thanksgiving, a holiday where we take specific time to thank God, lets also ask Him to give us back the joy of monotony. May we be able to find thanks in the things that have become normal and may we be able to rejoice in the continual blessings of our repetitious God.