EP. 72: Connecting Faith and Real Life (with Daniel Ryan Day)

Do you feel a disconnect between your faith and your everyday life? Does it sometimes feel like there is no purpose in the mundane things we do over and over again like folding clothes or washing dishes? On this episode of God Hears Her, Daniel Ryan Day shares how to connect our faith with our everyday real life, including the mundane activities we may sometimes feel are purposeless. 

About Our Guest:

Daniel Ryan Day is the author of What’s Next: Your Dream Job, God’s Call, and a Life That Sets You Free. He’s also a content producer and writer for Reclaim Today, a cohost for Our Daily Bread Ministries’ Discover the Word podcast, and a producer for the Where Ya From? and God Hears Her podcasts. Daniel holds a master’s degree from Fuller Theological Seminary, and is an ordained minister in the Anglican Church in North America. He is married to his high school sweetheart and has three kiddos.

Notes and Quotes: 

• “My story can be boiled down to growing up in a very tight Christian bubble but then having experiences that made me realize that a tight Christian bubble was not relating to the world in a way that made sense for the world that we live in.”
• “This faith in Jesus, if it’s real, has gotta impact how we interact with orphans, it’s got to make a difference in these bigger issues.”
• “How does this faith impact real life?”
• “So many things I learned in that experience [of giving up things], so hence the ten days without speech to represent those who don’t have a voice, or who have a voice but that it’s not listened to. Ten days without legs for those affected by disabilities that live in our world and who are often overlooked. Ten days without furniture for those who live in homeless settings and don’t have a home or don’t have furniture.”
• “I was still struggling with those questions of how does faith work in real life? Where do they meet? And specifically, as it relates to my calling and my job in the world.”
• “The use of the word ‘calling’ in the Scriptures, most often refers to callings like seeking justice, love mercy, walking humbly with God. So humility or giving thanks in all circumstances.”
• “The decade of the 20s and 30s are the real transformational decades for us really being shaped from how we grew up, what we thought we were going to be, who we thought we were going to be, into discovering the reality of us.”
• [On the topic of a Rwandan Pastor who walked the hills of his village to meet with people] “He’s just visiting with people. So meeting needs, his sermons, all of that comes from real relationships with people.”
• “It’s with people that real ministry happens.”
• “In the biblical story we get a picture of being colaborers with God. We’re not His servants, we’re not His slaves, we’re in relationship with Him. Invited into everything that we do being a part of this relationship with Him. And so, I think first and foremost above anything else, that is our purpose, that’s our identity, that’s our calling.”
• “God is at work. And God is going to accomplish His work, regardless of what role we play in it. So for us, where it actually begins is in quiet solitude time.”
• “Even in those mundane moments we can realize that God has us where He wants us to be.”
• Prayer for Today: “Creator God, who took what was formless and void and gave it shape and meaning, the One who filled emptiness with beauty and gave all creatures their purpose [including us]. Reclaim today in these small, seemingly insignificant moments. Help me discover meaning in the mundane. Ordain the very ordinariness of these tasks or my current lack of them for your glory, the good of the world, and my good. Amen.”

Links: 

• God Hears Her website: https://www.godhearsher.org/
• God Hears Her Newsletter Sign-Up: https://www.godhearsher.org/signup
• Subscribe on iTunes!  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/god-hears-her-podcast/id1511046507?utm_source=applemusic&utm_medium=godhearsher&utm_campaign=podcast
• Reclaim Today’s Instagram: reclaim.today
• Daniel Ryan Day’s book: What’s Next: Your Dream Job, God’s Call, and a Life That Sets You Free
• Watch Godspeed: https://www.livegodspeed.org/
• Elisa’s Instagram: elisamorganauthor
• Eryn’s Instagram: eryneddy

Verses: 

• The Lord’s callings to everyday people and people like Moses, Paul/Saul
• Genesis 1
• Acts 17:28: “For in Him we live and move and have our being.”