Michael Kelley, Boring: Finding an Extraordinary God in an Ordinary Life (2013).

“What if God actually doesn’t want you to escape from the ordinary, but to find significance and meaning inside of it?” p. 5

“In his classic work Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton reflected on what we might learn about the extraordinary monotony of God from the excitement of our kids:  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.” p. 47

“Thank God the gospel frees us from the lie that sin is freedom and happiness and moves us toward the joy of obedience and intimacy.  And thank God the gospel frees us from the lie that we are “okay” and makes us into the humble people that are “okay” because of Christ alone. They both need Jesus, but the way they see that need is going to be, I predict, very different from each other.” p. 132

“It’s a simple articulation of a profoundly transformative principle–that what we are doing at any given moment can be done enthusiastically and with joy because ultimately we are not doing those things for men. We are doing them for the lord. We aren’t just earning pay checks. We aren’t just saving up for retirement and vacation. We aren’t jet pining away at some thankless task. We are engaged in something holy. In something sacred. In something with great meaning, whether that something involves flipping burgers or balancing budgets. It is holy because we have a renewed perspective on it thanks to the gospel.” p. 171