God on a Saturday

I hate when my kitchen is cluttered.

Any time in my life that something important is about to happen (studying for finals in college, finishing a major project in grad school, preparing for a big doctor’s appointment for my special-needs son, sending my oldest off on his first day of kindergarten) I have begun in the kitchen. Counters cleared. Sink empty. Floors swept. I cannot proceed with the “big things” until the ordinary space is put in order.

For a long time, I thought this was just a personality quirk. But I’ve come to see it as something deeper: an instinct toward hidden faithfulness. Toward preparing the ground.

Scripture tells us that God entrusts us with both the small and the great. “Whoever is faithful in very little is also faithful in much” (Luke 16:10). Faithfulness isn’t built in dramatic moments. It’s formed quietly, through repeated acts of attention and care; through showing up when no one is watching.

There’s even wisdom here from neuroscience. Research in neuroplasticity shows that repeated small behaviors strengthen neural pathways; what we practice becomes what we default to. Habits, good or bad, shape our capacity for self-control, integrity, and resilience (see Dr. Andrew Huberman and Dr. Richard Davidson on habit formation and self-regulation).

We don’t rise to the occasion as much as we fall back on what we’ve trained ourselves to do.

What are you training yourself to do?

Recently, that has looked like something very simple in our home: fasting from meat every Friday, all year long, as a couple. Not to earn grace. Not to be performative or pharisaical. But to honor Christ’s sacrifice and to practice self-denial in small, embodied ways. To exercise that muscle. That muscle of self-denial needs to be strong in a relationship, doesn't it? In a marriage it is paramount. But it's also an applicable strength as a parent, as a friend, as a child, with co-workers, with those we don't particularly like, etc.

Faithfulness in the small trains us for faithfulness in the big. It means living with honesty and not cutting corners. Picking up the piece of trash you didn’t drop. Returning the stray shopping buggy in the parking lot. Letting your yes be yes, and your no be no (Matthew 5:37). Honoring God not just with words, but with actions, thoughts, and choices; big and small.

Today, honoring God in our home looks like rest, but it also looks like laundry. Water and soap and renewal; reminding me of baptism and of reconciliation. Of forgiveness. Of being washed and made new again (Titus 3:5).

Candles are lit in our home, not for ambiance alone, but as a quiet proclamation:

He is here. Always. In the kitchen. In the folding. In the silence.

There are no grand plans today, this Saturday. No mountaintop moments. Just the mundane. And yet, in the in-between, I can honor Him. I can praise Him. I can be faithful in the small and in the big. God does not disappear on Saturdays.

He dwells there.