Just remember back to the happiest and the most exciting moments of your life. Perhaps it’s the birth of your children, the first house you purchased, your wedding, the trip of a life time you took, your academic and career achievements, your first pay, powerful and special God moments? Wouldn’t it be great to relive them? Maybe not but haven’t you wished that your life would be filled with unending excitement and more God moments?
Such as waking up every morning and feeling God’s presence tangibly? Or when you pick up your Bible, God speaks to you in a clear audible voice? Wouldn’t it be great, the very moment you walk out of your front door or show up at work, your neighbours & work colleagues would come running to you, crying out, “What must we do to get saved?”
There is a temptation that all of us face regularly that if we are living on the cutting edge, then our lives should play out like an AFL match where there is constant action from one end of the field to the other. If only because it would make living the Christian life so much easier, wouldn’t it?
But life isn’t like that, is it? Instead, life often feels very ordinary. You go day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, pretty much doing the same things. In these moments, it’s very easy to feel like you have very little use to God. However, Jesus made us an iron clad promise, “And surely, I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matt 28:20b). This means that God is closely with us, working out his purposes in and through us in the everyday things of life, with all of its joys and sorrow, excitement and boredom.
When her marriage broken down, Alejandra became suicidal. One day, she was sitting on a bench at a park, contemplating on the ways she could end her life when a woman came and sat down next to her. “Are you a Christian?”, she asked. Alejandra said she was. Then the woman said, “I just want to tell you that if you are a follower of Jesus, you are more than a conqueror in him”. Alejandra later remarked, “Bam! Those words breathed life into me. All thoughts of suicide left me and God’s unexplainable peace rushed in. My husband and I will celebrate 26 years of marriage this year”. An ordinary walk need not be ordinary just like a jar of beetroot relish! (remember the article from last week’s church bulletin)
“Excellence isn’t about the days when you feel inspired to take on the world. It’s about pushing through the days when you feel like giving up, but don’t. God’s purposes for you, your family, your ministry, your church, your life won’t be accomplished through one mountaintop experience after the other. They’ll be done through a long series of small steps done with faithfulness, patience, obedience, love and integrity” (Karl Vaters).
Coram Deo,
Mark
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