Christ Changes Everything

It’s Saturday morning. Bright sunlight is streaming through my window and across my bedsheets.

I wish it weren’t.

I close my eyes and press my face into my pillow, but it’s no good. I know it’s morning, and I have to get up.

I don’t mean to be grumpy, but I have so much to do today. I have a writing deadline to meet and job applications to fill out. I need to go grocery shopping.

I lumber to the kitchen and start a pot of coffee. While it brews, I grab a piece of paper and start making a list of what I need to get done. The list seems more daunting in black ink than it did in my head.

The coffee pot starts to gargle, letting me know it’s done. But when I open my cupboard, I realize I don’t have any clean mugs.

One more thing to add to the list: Wash dishes.

For now, I grab a glass cup and fill it full of coffee. Then I sit down in my recliner to pray before I start my day.

Lord, I am not excited for today. I really don’t want to tackle these tasks. Please give me a diligent spirit this morning.

When I’ve finished praying, I drink my coffee. The sunlight that so rudely awoke me lies in a patch on the floor. But there’s something abnormal about the light. It contains perpendicular lines of red and green. I look up to see that the color is coming from the stained-glass cross that hangs in my window. The cross was a gift an old friend gave me years ago.

Simple sunlight filters through the cross. And the cross transforms the light into stunning color. Through that process, the mundane becomes extraordinary.

Christ changes everything.

He changes hearts. He changes lives. He changed a symbol of death into a symbol of life.

I want to filter every part of my life through the cross of Christ. And today, that means looking at my to-do list in a new way.

So I choose to be grateful for my writing deadline, because writing allows me to share Christ with others. I choose to be grateful for job applications, because my next job will provide new opportunities for me to help people. I even choose to be grateful for grocery shopping, because it’s a privilege that I never have to go hungry.

And, through the power of Christ, the list of things I have to do becomes a list of things I get to do.