ORDINARY

I’m guessing that the title of this story hasn’t really gripped you?  Or, has it?   In our world today, people seem to look for people and circumstances that are a “cut above” the ordinary.   Seldom do I come across others who are “content and satisfied” with who and how God created them to be.

Generally speaking, we humans seem to long for the need to be successful, significant, important, irreplaceable, outstanding, remarkable, prosperous, at the top of our game, bestselling and notable.  

For many, it’s a life goal!  We can strive, manipulate, orchestrate and wish ourselves beyond belief.  Just get on Facebook for 10 minutes, and you’ll witness a display of the wonders and accomplishments of people and their perfectly ordered lives.

If we’d all embrace and rest in Psalm 139, verses 13 through 18, we’d be saturated daily with the knowledge of how we were “designed by God.”  Yes, it’s a fallen world in which we live, that’s blatantly obvious. 

However, God’s purposes for each of us are beyond what we could imagine, if we’d just yield to “His plans and purposes” instead of mapping out our life’s agenda by ourself without consulting with Him.   There’s no requirement by our Creator that our bodies and minds need to be perfect for Him to use us. 

As in the design of a watch, the watchmaker knows best how it works and fulfills its purposeful design.  Even a tulip never longs to be a rose.  It’s content with the color, design and blooming effectiveness it has in being what it was designed to be.

“For it was You Who created my inward part; You knit me together in my mother’s womb.  I will praise You because I have been remarkably and wondrously made.  Your works are wondrous, and I know this very well.  My bones were not hidden from You when I was made in secret, when I was formed in the depths of the earth.  Your eyes saw me when I was formless; all my days were written in your book and planned before a single one of them began.”  Psalm 139:13-18

God “custom designed” each of us to love Him, know Him, and enjoy Him both now and forever.  And most of all we are  to “glorify Him” (or in my own words…. make God look good) as we live out His plans for our lives

“I am called to live in such a perfect relationship with God that my life produces a yearning for God in the lives of others, not admiration for myself.”  “My Utmost for His Highest” devotional, by Oswald Chambers

I’ve been nourished and mentored by a few beautiful women in my journey of life, and many of them spoke, shared and lived in ways that “nourished my heart to love and trust the Lord, regardless of what was going on in my life.”   All of these women would have considered themselves very “ordinary;” but they made an “extraordinary” impact in my sojourn.

In many of the stories you’ve read, I’ve shared numerous times the “life goal” that God gave me years ago.   It’s given me focus, purpose, passion, and direction.

AFTER PEOPLE SPEND TIME WITH ME, WHAT DO THEY THINK OF

JESUS CHRIST?

It isn’t necessary that I win every argument, or prove I’m somebody or even share any earthly accomplishments.

As I listen and learn from other Christians, there seems to be a theme that often leaks out and displays itself in the following phrase.

I want to do BIG things, IMPORTANT things for God and His kingdom. 

But there’s nothing in the Bible that tells us that.  Jesus longs that we be faithful in the “little things.”   He takes our everyday, simple obedience and uses it in incredible ways.  The stories I’ve shared from my life are all composites of “tiny, insignificant” ingredients.

God yearns to use each of us and with what we place in His hand.  Every outreach of care, concern, or even baked goods can be multiplied when placed in His hands to use and to bless.   But we must give Him something to work with…something for Him to multiply.

God never asks us to do what we think is important.  He asks us to do what He thinks is important.  And what He thinks is important, ofttimes seems so “insignificant to us.”   Why?  I feel it’s because we’re not looking at it through the lens of the Omnipotent, Omniscient Creator, Who “makes the insignificant and ordinary, of profound value.”

Just this week I met a man who shared his passion for loving others into God’s family.  He spoke of the various “tiny opportunities” God gave him to affirm and love his friend.  He shared how his friend had sought God through a myriad of religions.   He came to hate “all religion.”

My friend made it clear that God hates religion too.  He wants a “relationship” with us.  In a conversation with this man, his friend blurted out these words:

“I want to know Jesus, because I know you.”

You might want to pause and re-read his comment.  I was blown away with this statement.  He wanted to know Jesus, because of the time spent with his friend.   He came to love the idea and the character and life of Jesus, by watching his friend’s life.  There’s no higher affirmation to receive.

We all live in different neighborhoods, and mix with a vast assortment of people.  We’re to be “lights in this world” to point to the Savior. 

If your personal wattage for Jesus was tested, how many watts would your life for Him be?  Are you shining brightly for Him……or are you perhaps just a night light?   Whatever your voltage, your light is to shine in our dark world.

So, after people spend time with you and with me, do they have a more accurate picture of Who Jesus is, and why He came to earth to die for each one of us …. so we could be forgiven and brought into a right relationship with God.

Like the woman at the well event told in Scripture, Jesus spoke to an ORDINARY woman, on an ORDINARY day, in an ORDINARY way and made her life EXTRAORDINARY for her Savior.  Her shaded immoral life was transformed at the well, and she ran into her town sharing with everyone about Jesus and the difference He made in her life.

Let’s be prayerfully sensitive to every “tiny opportunity” the Lord brings along our path in life to share the love and message of Jesus Christ.  For everything “we do or say” should represent how Jesus would reach out to show others His love.

Matthew 10:42 “And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.”

This verse “shouts” that even a “cup of ORDINARY COLD WATER,” that is tasteless, colorless, and odorless, God will bless and use to reach others; for He notices, uses and blesses every little thing we do, on His behalf, to touch another.

DO PEOPLE WANT TO KNOW JESUS

BECAUSE THEY KNOW YOU?

I’m closing with two poems that so beautifully illustrate the influence our lives carry upon other people.

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO YOU

Men are not reading the Bible today

They’re dashing about in their own reckless way.

Most of them don’t care what God has to say,

But brother, they’re reading you.

What is the gospel according to you?

Can people see that to Christ you are true?

Your neighbor reads your actions and deeds,

What can he read in you?

Timothy read what was written by Paul,

I like to read about David and Saul.

But most people don’t read the Bible at all

But brother, they’re reading you.

The gospel according to Matthew I love,

Mark, Luke and John point to heaven above.

They all fit together like hand in glove,

The blessed whole Bible is true.

But most people don’t care what Jesus has said,

Their minds may be keen, but their souls are so dead.

The Bible ignored – they read comics instead

But brother, they’re reading you.

You are writing a gospel a chapter each day,

By the deeds that you do, by the words that you say.

Men read what you write whether faithless or true

Say, what is the gospel according to you?

Anonymous

This next poem was read to a church audience by Lee Strobel.  It was written by a 24-year-old nurse who had been poisoned against God and poisoned against the church looking at followers of Jesus Christ and saying these words.  

Do you know?  Do you understand that you represent Jesus to me.

Do you know?  Do you understand when you treat me with gentleness, it raises the question in my mind, well maybe He is gentle too.  Maybe He isn’t someone who laughs when I get hurt.

Do you know?  Do you understand that when you listen to my questions, and you don’t laugh at them, I think well maybe Jesus is interested in me too.

Do you know?  Do you understand that when I hear you talk honestly about arguments and conflicts and scars from your past.  Then I think well, maybe I am just a regular person instead of a bad, no good little girl who deserves abuse.

If you care, then I think maybe He cares, and then there’s this flame of hope that burns inside of me.  And for awhile I’m afraid to breathe because it might go out

Do you know?  Do you understand that your words are His words, and your face is His face to someone like me.

Please, be who you say you are.  Please God, don’t let this be another trick.    Please let it be real this time.  Please

Do you know?  Do you understand that you, you, and you represent Jesus to me.

God longs to “ooze from the pores of our lives” to all those we come in contact.  Our lives are to be lived in such a way that others want Him too.  Yes, you and I are called to live in such a relationship with God that our life produces a yearning for God in the lives of others…. not admiration for ourselves.

I’d like to close with the following quote from a pastor I heard recently from Dallas, Texas.  It so beautifully sums up what the quality of our influence produces in the lives we touch.

God tells us:

“My image is stamped in your being, and that I want that to be a display in the world of what it looks like to live your life aligned to Me; so that the world in darkness can see a display of how wonderful it is to live a life under the rule of God – not the rule of all those false gods.

God wants His life to ooze from your life.

God’s providence is the hand of God inside the glove of human events.

God works among my work and efforts”

Dr. Jonathan Murphy, Professor and Chair of the Pastoral Ministries Department at Dallas Theological Seminary

A closing compass thought:

How are you and I “expressing God” to others?