Perspective changes everything.

This has become a common theme of my life in the past few months. I learned that the way I see things changes things. Of course, the things don’t change just because I look at it in a different way. A blue T-shirt is still a blue T-shirt, no matter which angle I choose to stare at it from. An illness is still something to be healed from, a problem between friends is still something to be solved. Many things stay the same despite their changes in perspective. But I realized that it changes the way we respond to things on so many different levels.

If I treat my daily chores, like mopping the floor, cleaning my bathroom, making up my bed, - the list goes on- just like that, then I would be wasting many hours in the morning doing nothing. I may physically be doing something, but what do I get? I guess being a perfectionist plays a big part in this reflection too, where I come to a conclusion that if I have to mop the floor everyday for about 30 minutes and I can’t find anything more to take away from it than just a cleaner house, then it has become a wasted 30 minutes. Unless, a clean house is something that can enrich my life. But it doesn’t, or at least not that much. It makes me more comfortable, but it doesn’t add value to my day-to-day being.

Now. Would you believe me if I tell you that the simple act of mopping the floor can actually be a life-changing 30 minutes if we see it as so much more than just cleaning the house? Keep reading, let me try to convince you. See, what I did was that I prayed about it. As silly as it sounds, I started praying about this routine of mopping the house. I asked God what the deal was with mopping, what kind of attitude and mindset I should have to make this a more meaningful daily experience?

What I got in return was not much of a surprise, a bit silly, but nonetheless life-changing. God was challenging me: what if mopping the floor was a part of walking in His purposes? If I believe that nothing is outside of His control and that every detail is a part of His plan, then mopping the floor (which I cannot escape from) has to be included in a much more bigger picture than just helping to keep the house clean. Right? The mopping stayed the same. It remained a simple house chore that I had to do every morning. But when I shift my perspective into God’s plans and promises, and how every investment I made was leading me closer to where I need to be and what I need to become, mopping become so much more glorious!

I didn’t want my mopping routine to be just a cleaning duty. I wanted to be able to grow through this simple process. And truth be told, as silly as I still find it to be, it has become one of my most cherished parts in the morning. It gives me time to pray, to worship and even to ponder on things about life. I learned about discipline by doing it every morning without fail. I learned about being faithful in little things. I learned about being meticulous by paying attention to the little corners that are hardly seen but dirty nonetheless. I learned about the willingness to serve others, which in this case are my parents. And a bunch of other things, that I am yet to learn in the years to come.

Perspective. Mopping isn’t just mopping anymore when I learn to see God in the process. Crazy isn’t it, how God shows Himself evident even in the smallest things of life, the most mundane things we can imagine.

Perspective.

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. -Romans 12:1-2 (MSG)