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Day 1 – The Routine Offering
by Sarah Micula
Most mornings on my commute to work I listen to talk radio. I like getting caught up on the local, national and global news. I love listening to NPR on Friday mornings to hear Story Corps – a radio broadcast that records, preserves, and shares the stories of Americans from all backgrounds and beliefs. But I used to hate talk radio. On 9/11, while driving to class, I remember every radio station was talking, like all of a sudden every channel was the news. As I said, I hated talk radio of any kind so I kept scanning the radio until music came on. Nothing, no music on any channel; it was all news. I finally stopping scanning and flipping through stations and stopped to hear what every DJ was talking about. It was then I learned a plane had hit one of the World Trade Center towers in New York City. It was before 9am, which meant the crash had just happened and traffic was dense and slow enough to look into other cars and see people’s faces. I looked into other cars commuting that morning, wondering if they were hearing what I was hearing. Were they listening to CDs that morning or did they know?
As I’ve gotten older my hatred for talk radio faded, and after that day—that day none of us will forget—I’ve wanted to be informed. And talk radio has become a part of my routine.
One recent morning on the routine commute, I decided to turn the radio off. I had just heard the Message translation of Romans 12 and was captured by it. With the radio off I decided to repeat in my head the first couple of verses, what I could remember at least. 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.
I kept repeating it and letting it sink in, challenging myself to offer parts of my day to God. Then the phrase everyday offering came to me, and I realized that an ordinary routine activity like driving to work could be an offering to God, by doing what I was doing: tuning out the world and offering that time to God. That ordinary part of my life was an offering to Him.
Thoughts to Ponder:
What part of your routine do you want to break?
What do you hope to work into your routine?
