Most often, God’s work is through the ordinary.
While we may be familiar with this notion, we still find ourselves drawn to the allure of the extraordinary. To be sure, this is a mystery facing almost all of us and one that needs guidance to navigate.
Looking forward, we often yearn for an ideal relational connection or environment that might give our lives meaning. Looking back, we can be tempted to live nostalgically, seeking to relive the “glory days” or those times that seemed to be idyllic.
In those instances, we find ourselves inordinately longing for something that gives purpose to our days and seasons at the expense of appreciating the moments we’re in. On the one hand, it’s natural to long for the extraordinary, to want to feel God’s presence uniquely and meaningfully. But, we can’t lose sight of the potential power that happens as we’re faithful in the everyday happenings of the ordinary.
Thus, if we’re not careful, our present moments can be sporadically buried, like a busy squirrel frantically storing its cache for winter. We must be careful not to tuck our present moments away in forgotten places like the bustling squirrel, hoping their return will more than satisfy our longings.
What’s the Way Forward?
Perspective: The Christian life is lived out in the ordinary but is bracketed by the extraordinary…so that the ordinary makes way for the extraordinary.
- Divine Reality. While our progress and growth in Christlikeness began extraordinarily, it works out in the ordinary.
- That Christ died on the cross, rose from the grave, and is seated at the right hand of God is beyond comprehension and is, therefore, a Divine reality. That Christ opened our eyes to our sin, His sufficient substitutionary sacrifice, and our reaching out in faith, confession, and repentance for His salvation is a Divine work of God.
- These two realities, (1) Christ’s life, death, and resurrection and (2) our new life, death, and future resurrection, are punctiliar. That is to say, it happened at one point in time: Christ died once and for all, and we, in Christ, died once and are saved in Him.
- Thus, we are born again—new creatures in Christ—forever because of God’s monergistic act on our behalf (one-work: mono-one; ergos-work).
- Everyday Reality. Growth in the Christian life is a dynamic and cooperative experience that combines Divine and human work in the everyday-ness of the ordinary.
- There is both a passive and active aspect of the human’s work in this process referred to as sanctification: passively, we yield to God’s work in our lives (Rom. 12:1), and actively, we obey Scripture (2 Pet. 1:19), pray (Phil. 4:6-7), confess sin (1 John 1:9), resist Satan (James 4:7), flee temptation (1 Cor. 10:13), put to death sinful tendencies (Rom. 6:1-24), and more.1
- Ultimately, the Holy Spirit works in us to regenerate (Titus 3:5-7) and conform us (2 Cor. 3:17) to Christ and accomplish this transformation.
- Thus, we are born again for good works that glorify God and serve others through synergistic acts (together-work: syn-together; ergos-work).
- Future Reality. Every Christian is given an extraordinary promise of a resurrection body that is glorified and renewed according to Christ’s glorified body (Phil. 3:21).
- The promise of an eternal embodied state is extraordinary. Indeed, it’s beyond our comprehension, yet it is the promise to all Christians (2 Cor. 5). The hope of a future glorified body gives us meaning in our present moment(s).
- However, Paul argues that our future resurrection hope should motivate the faithfulness of a present walk (in the mundane) in holiness (1 Cor. 7:12-20). Our present faithfulness to God and His Word is informed by our future promise to be like Him and see Him as He is (1 John 3:2).
- Thus, while we are promised a glorified body that will eternally express the redemption God has accomplished for us on the cross (extraordinary), we are still called to faithfulness in our everyday lives (ordinary) as an expression of God’s Divine ongoing work today.
Let us all pursue an extraordinarily ordinary life to the glory of God and the service of others.
For the present moment is the Divine moment2!
“Who dares despise the day of small things…”
Zechariah 4:10a
1 Gregg R. Allison, 50 Core Truths of the Christian Faith: A Guide to Understanding and Teaching Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2018), 267–69.
2 John Baillie, A Diary of Private Prayer by John Baillie, First (New York, NY: Scribner, 2014), 99.