How To Use Mundane Routines As The Soil Where Grace Grows

by Dave Miller

The reality that the new creation known as the Kingdom of God operates in a radically different fashion than the old creation can overwhelm anyone learning to walk by the Spirit. We have lived our entire lives conditioned by the old creation, so we default to natural instincts, natural desires, natural calculations, and natural self protective strategies. We know how to operate in the old world because we understand its incentives, fears, rewards, and punishments. We know how to game the system because we have lived inside it for so long. The old habits of grasping for control and relying on our own track record feel familiar, even when familiarity produces outcomes we no longer want. But when you switch to the Kingdom oikosystem, everything feels unnatural to your habits, thinking, and feelings. You take steps of faith without a personal track record to lean on. Your reliance on Jesus through the Word and Spirit become your substitute experience, the absence of your own security can feel scary, and your trust in grace is shallow. Because of how unnatural this change feels, many cling to familiar patterns even when those patterns keep them stuck. In fact Jesus even explained how hard this would be, “…no one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good’” (Luke 5:39).

Paul understood this tension, so Ephesians 5 opens with a command that sounds impossible unless grace fills a life from the inside out. He tells us to imitate God. He does not hide this instruction in a paragraph about spiritual heroes or supernatural achievements. He anchors the imitation of God in the everyday, mundane routines of relationships and responsibilities, because the kingdom of God enters real life through ordinary moments. Paul teaches us what it looks like to walk in a manner worthy of our calling in the places nobody else sees and in the relationships we cannot avoid. Eternal life does not work like a timeline or a finish line. Jesus already told us eternal life means knowing Him and the Father who sent Him. Eternal life describes a state of being, not a length of time. So if the Kingdom does not appear in your everyday routines, you will not find it when the stakes increase, or in some “future” moment. 

Paul structures Ephesians 5 with great precision. After calling us to imitate God, he shows how this imitation plays out in real relationships where our natural instincts usually dominate. He addresses how we walk in love, how we walk in light, how we discern what pleases the Lord, how husbands and wives treat each other, how parents and children respond to each other, and how servants and masters work with integrity.

Paul does not point us toward dramatic ministries, heroic callings, or extraordinary adventures. He directs us to the places where the kingdom must grow first. If the kingdom does not transform the relationships and responsibilities closest to us, it will not transform anything bigger. If grace does not take root in your home, habits, daily work, or closest relationships, then what grace are we giving to others? Are we, as Christians, offering a “wait and see” option for when God waves his magic wand in the end to fix everything? Certainly not! We are offering eternal life, a profound quality of life Jesus also calls abundant and a light yoke. Joy. Right here, right now—and by definition everlasting since it is found in a relationship with the eternal God through the resurrected Messiah named Jesus. 

This is why we must bury habits of the Word into the mundane. Our earlier reflection on priorities highlighted this truth clearly. Priorities should not be left to form under pressure. The Spirit should form priorities through repetition in ordinary life. You do not rise to the level of your intentions. You fall to the level of your habits. If the Word of God does not sink into your everyday routines, the pressures of life will shape you more than the presence of God. The early church devoted themselves to the apostles teaching because they needed the Word to fill their daily rhythms. The Word anchors your instincts, redirects your reactions, and forms the inner compass you need when pressure arrives. Without habits of the Word buried into the mundane, you will not form the instincts needed to walk in the new creation.

Paul then shifts in Ephesians 6 to explain why this everyday formation matters. The real battle for kingdom living happens long before any dramatic moment arrives. The battle for living in the kingdom is won or lost in the mundane. Paul calls believers to stand firm in the vast strength of the Lord and to put on the armor of God. 

Grace does not offer passive comfort. Let me write that again, grace does not offer passive comfort. Grace gives the strength of the Lord to weak people who depend on Him in ordinary moments nobody else celebrates. You experience the strength of the Lord when you trust Him in the daily rhythms where your natural instincts want to take control. The armor of God does not operate like a costume for spiritual firefights. It functions as the equipment proven in the kitchen, workplace, living room, commute, and private moments of obedience. Paul does not describe a warrior who grabs the armor while sprinting into crisis. He describes a believer who prepares to stand long before crisis arrives.

This connects directly to the habits of the Word and the Spirit every moment of everyday. Every piece of the armor of God depends on the Word of God taking root inside a life through the work of the Spirit. Truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, and the sword of the Spirit all require depth. 

You do not stand firm in the day of evil unless you understand we live in evil days. The Word must shape you in days that feel uneventful. 

You do not breathe deeply, chest out strong unless righteousness is your chosen way of life. 

You do not charge ahead with peacemaking unless you have the right enemies: sin, Satan, and deception. 

You do not lift the shield of faith unless the Word has taught you who God really is and how he has already accomplished his will in the past. 

You do not lean into salvation’s deliverance unless you have been rescued repetitively from sin, Satan, and deception yourself. 

You cannot wield the sword of the Spirit unless you bury the Word, both in knowledge and obedience, in your routines so the Spirit can bring it to mind and make it the new natural. 

The armor proves itself only in people who train in the mundane by letting the Word settle into the grooves of their habits.

Mundane routines become the soil where grace grows. Every ordinary responsibility contains a decision point, a pressure point, and an invitation to walk in the new creation instead of the old one. 

When you wake up tired and choose gratitude instead of complaint, you grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 

When you choose love toward a spouse instead of irritation, you grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 

When you act with integrity at work, consistency with a child, or patience toward a neighbor, you grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 

And when you add habits of the Word into these routines, you give the Spirit the soul He uses to shape you. Or as Paul would say in Romans 12:1, you “offer your body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God….” The Word forms your instincts so by grace the Spirit can exponentially empower your actions.

The key to walking in the kingdom does not rest in dramatic moments. The key rests in daily practices where the Spirit forms your instincts until grace becomes your strength and obedience becomes your joy. You gain a track record of faith not through extraordinary leaps but through hidden, repetitive, ordinary moments where you choose dependence instead of self reliance. Over time these moments create a new familiarity. You stop fearing the mystery faith requires because you become familiar with the faithfulness of God in the mundane. Like Paul said in verse 2 of Romans 12, “…that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

You stop chasing dramatic purpose because the ultimate reality we long for, eternal life, fills the routines where you already live. You stop feeling intimidated by the new creation because you begin to live inside it one ordinary moment at a time.

Grace grows in the soil of everyday routines. The Word trains your instincts so grace can work. The strength of the Lord reveals itself through a life prepared to stand and imitate God in the most ordinary corners of life.

So the question remains, are you ready and willing to invite the eternal into your everyday life? 

Practical next steps:

1. Make Jesus and His Kingdom ways your priority by faith. He is the better way. 

   
   

2. Identify your closest relationships: spouse, children, workplace, parents, friends… 

   
   

3. Take the armor of God into those relationships and practice bringing the gospel of peace. Serve them like Jesus with His Kingdom ways.

   
   

4. Find one way to thank the Lord each day for the simple grace you have taken for granted in each of those relationships. 

   
   

5. Continue the practical next steps in How to Structure Your Priorities With the Spirit Instead of Pressure