This post is an excerpt from my book Enough for Now: Unpacking God’s Sufficiency. Learn how ordinary can be extraordinary.
A few years ago, I attended a writing conference where one of the speakers asked participants to write the names of our three favorite movies. It didn’t take me long to come up with three titles: While You Were Sleeping, It’s a Wonderful Life, and The Sound of Music.
“Next,” the speaker said, “think of something these movies have in common. What ties them together? What underlying theme do you find in all three? This is a clue to your true passion.”
It took me much longer to uncover a shared theme. After all, what do a Chicago token taker, small-town loan officer, and an Austrian nun have in common? Finally, I realized all three movies have a main character who thinks he or she desperately wants one thing, but in the end discovers happiness in something totally different.
Yes, I thought, this reflects my passion of living in the love of Jesus. Time and again my human nature desires something out of my reach. I become certain contentment is not possible without this one thing. Sometimes God answers my prayers and gives me that desire, but more often He gently and lovingly shows me what I long for doesn’t lead to joy. I reluctantly give up the dream, plan, or goal and God gives me something much more satisfying in its place.
Ordinary vs. Extraordinary
But recently, I realized another connective theme between the three movies–the theme of: ordinary. At the beginning of each movie, the characters—Lucy Moderatz, George Bailey, and Maria Von Trapp—want something extraordinary, glamorous, or special. But in the end, they find fulfillment of their dreams in the commonplace, mundane, and ordinary. In While You Were Sleeping, Lucy has a crush on a handsome, mysterious, successful businessman but finds happiness with his more humble tradesman brother. George Baily dreams of traveling the world and building impressive skyscrapers but discovers his life has impacted hundreds of people while he stayed in his humdrum hometown and worked at the family business. Maria thinks she needs to serve God through full-time Christian work and retreating from the everyday world, but God calls her to a more ordinary role of wife and mother. (This movie has a little twist: Maria’s life turns out extraordinary—even as she chooses the ordinary path.)
This is not easy for me to admit, but I have been like Lucy, like George, like Maria. I wanted to do something big for God—write a bestseller or lead hundreds of people to Christ. I wanted to impress the world and show God I deserve His love and grace. Perhaps this is because our culture continually drums this call to big and important. A truck commercial that frequently plays on my TV goes something like this:
How do you want to live? As a decent person? Fine human being? As a good father, friend, son? It that it? Good? Of course not.
Parent of the year? Better. Employee of the month? Absolutely. One of a kind. The center of their world. Like a boss. Like a pro.
As the truck rolls across the screen, the ad reminds me it is not enough to be good, to be decent, to be a fine human being. I need to be better or the best.
But God doesn’t call me to do something big and important. He asks me to love the people around me and work in the place where I find myself. This may not look impressive or get my name on the five-o-clock news. My seemingly insignificant efforts may not win awards or garner a million hits on social media. But as I obey in the small things, God Himself will do the extraordinary.
God Calls Us to Ordinary
Oswald Chambers, author of the devotional My Utmost for His Highest, wrote:
It is ingrained in us that we have to do exceptional things for God—but we do not. We have to be exceptional in the ordinary things of life, and holy on the ordinary streets, among ordinary people—and this is not learned in five minutes.
God calls us to the ordinary. He calls us to everyday faithfulness. He calls us to adopt the words of John the Baptist, “He [Jesus] must increase but I must decrease” (John 3:30). At first this seems a hard thing. We want to be noticed. We want to be special.
But constantly striving to prove ourselves is exhausting. As we focus on decreasing, we let go of pushing toward the exceptional and remarkable. We live redeemed and restored lives that are anything but ordinary because the Spirit dwells within us. We become less noticed, but Jesus’ fame grows. Jesus invites us to rest in His enoughness and live for His glory.
In Christ’s kingdom, ordinary faithfulness is extraordinary.
Next step: Try the three movies exercise I did at a writing conference. a) Name three favorite movies. b) Find a connecting theme. c) How does this theme reflect your life passion?
This post is an excerpt from my book Enough for Now: Unpacking God’s Sufficiency. It is used with permission from Concordia Publishing House.
Check out the book Enough for Now: Unpacking God’s Sufficiency which explores how we can find enough in God even when the world encourages us to search for more.
A study of the parable of the rich fool, it will help you discover:
- enough money
- enough stuff
- enough food
- enough relationships
- enough time
- enough of me
You can find out more about it here. And order it here and here!
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