Ordinary Matters

“Ordinary matters” wrote author Max Lucado in a post on his facebook page several months ago.

When I hear the word “ordinary” I think of that which is common, typical, normal and natural. I think of life events that are routine and maybe even humdrum.

Lacado, however, connects the ordinary to the extra ordinary. The common to the uncommon. The natural to the supernatural.

“In the beginning was the Word” (John 1:1 NIV).

The baby Mary held was connected to the dawn of time. He saw the first ray of sunlight and heard the first crash of a wave. The baby was born, but the Word never was. Jesus: the Genesis Word. And then, what no rabbi dared to dream, God did. “The Word became flesh” (John 1:14 NIV). The Artist became oil on his own palette. God became an embryo in the belly of a village girl. Christ in Mary. God in Christ.

The Word of God entered the world with the cry of a baby. His family had no cash or connections or strings to pull. But God came through them. God writes his story with people, ordinary people like Joseph and Mary, in an ordinary place, but conduits of extraordinary grace. And in God’s story, ordinary matters.

Centuries removed from the events of Jesus’ birth, we find ourselves in the midst of many of the challenges in our world like the one into which Jesus was born. Moral perversion. Political corruption. Religious hypocrisy. Spiritual blindness. But also a spiritual hunger and thirst for a taste of the Divine.

“In the fullness of time,” the Bible says, God sent Jesus into the world. In other words, when the time was right. In our human wisdom, we might not have thought so. But God saw something we don’t. And to Max’s point, God saw something in Joseph and his young virgin wife to be that no one else saw. And they didn’t even see it in themselves.

We might have thought it better for Jesus to be born in the palace of the King. To a royal family. At least to people with some prominence and position to promote who Jesus was. But God chose common folks, engaged in common labor, living a common life.

Lucado’s post reminds us that God can use you and me to accomplish His purpose. Regardless of our occupation, education, or social standing, we can shine as a light in a dark world. We can be messengers of His love. We can be ministers of good works. We can herald the message, in our own unique way, of God’s saving grace.

Through the years we have worshiped with and preached for small congregations both in the United States, as well as other countries and met some of the finest people on the face of the earth. Unknown outside their small circle of influence, common folks, living an ordinary life, but connected to the extra ordinary. Serving God. And sharing their faith. Touching lives. And making a difference.

I think about my childhood days growing up in central Indiana of folks who influenced me for good and to serve God, who’ve since gone on to their reward. Thomas Long, one of the Shepherds at Plainfield, Indiana, who was approachable and encouraging to a young boy who wanted to preach. Roscoe Ping, a Deacon, who served with my father, kind and friendly, who I can still see sitting on the second row, looking intently and hanging on every word of a teenage boy like he was the most profound preacher he ever heard. Verna McKee , the wife of our preacher, Aude McKee. She was like a second mother to me. And in latter years was a wonderful example to my wife, Norma Jean, on the role of a preacher’s wife.

I think of people where I have preached who made a difference in their communities and the local church. Dilbert Gilliland. Dave and Nancy Wyckoff. Jim Grushon. Evelyn Fielding. Jean Hudson. E.R. Greene. Duke George. Laurel Dugger. Judy Baker. JoAnn Harmon. And so many more. These who’ve gone on to their reward. Ordinary people. Unknown and unheralded by the world, but known by God.

Never discount what you can do. Where you can do it. When you can do it. And how you can do it. God used common people like Joseph and Mary for a grand purpose. And He can use you too.

“Ordinary matters.”

–Ken Weliever, The Preacherman