Living the Ordinary
In the ordinary of our lives, we can still serve God fully.
Much of life is lived in the ordinary.
Despite what social media often portrays to us, every day life is not multi-course meals, the latest product, or an extravagant trip to Europe. While these things are fun and a blessing every now and then, it’s not the norm. And social media is just the highlights.
Life, for most of us, is ordinary. And there is beauty in the ordinary.
Christ meets us in the ordinary.
In the Catholic tradition, there is time in the Church calendar literally called “Ordinary Time”. This is time in the year in between major celebrations and fasting periods like Lent, Advent, and Christmas. In fact, Ordinary Time makes up a majority portion of the Church calendar. We live much of the year in Ordinary Time.
So, how do we embrace “the ordinary”?
I think we can learn how to embrace the ordinary by looking to the One who is quite extraordinary! God sent His Son to save us from our sins. Jesus became a human like us. He lived a human life. However, we don’t meet Jesus in the gospels fully until he is approximately 30 years old.
For 30 silent years (excluding the story of his birth, and in Luke’s gospel, his encounter in the temple with teachers at age 12), we don’t know quite what Jesus was up to.
Presumably, he was living a fairly ordinary life.
It was only when God the Father signaled him that it was time, that his ministry began. So, for 30 years, our Savior presumably lived a relatively normal life, likely as a carpenter. Can you imagine meeting Jesus on a normal day prior to when his ministry began? What would that have been like?
We can’t know for sure what went on prior to Jesus’ ministry because it is not documented. What we can know for sure, is that Jesus served God the Father fully. Jesus said to God the Father in prayer towards the end of his three year ministry:
“I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do” - John 17:4, NRSV-CE
In the ordinary of our lives, we can still serve God fully. We can serve him in the mundane, in the seemingly unimportant, and in the daily.
Every day was not meant to be a big breakthrough in faith or miracle or answered prayers.
Quite the contrary.
I believe we are called to find God in the ordinary. He is everywhere. Signs of Him are all over, because He created this world. We must simply be attentive enough to the details to see Him.
So, if life has felt too ordinary for you lately, remember that there is beauty in the ordinary. God meets you in the ordinary. Simply be open to looking for Him in places you may not have considered before.
In Christ,
There is so much joy in the ordinary.