So many challenging authors and pastors out there exhort us to move to the inner city to minister or sell all, settle and serve the Lord in an ‘unnamed’ country, that most of us feel GUILTY for being….so ORDINARY!

My heart was refreshed the other day when I listened to a conversation on the White Horse Inn podcast about the courage it takes to live out the ordinary daily-ness of life.  Mike Horton, the host, talked with Tish Harrison Warren about her realities as a young mom. You can read her blog post from last April at the link below.

Young mom challenges the definition of the radical Christian life

What struck me as I listened and punctuated the air with my “AMENS”  was how as American Christians we are captive to several trends.

1) we’re Americans. Therefore, we have inherited a kind of manifest destiny that causes us to THINK that God has a big special purpose for each of us.

2) we’ve bought into the rat-race as kids and then parents of kids who tailor interesting and DIFFERENT activities.  Kids today can’t just achieve a high SAT score and earn all As and maybe participate in team sports and work at Starbucks in the summers.  You have to have built an orphanage from scratch or rescued girls caught up in the slave trade or patented a cure for ADHD by the time you apply to college.

3) we’re bored in the midst of material and tech heaven that is the US

Listening to Tish Warren describe how much HARDER it is to do the ordinary daily things like get up, go to work, care for kids, clean, do errands and serve your neighbor when you have time, made me realize HOW MUCH God loves the routine.  After all, He set up the cycle of hourly, daily, weekly, monthly and yearly work & worship.  These are HOLY, God-exalting activities.

So, instead of despairing that we are not doing anything SPECIAL for the Kingdom, let’s ask God to give us a new freshness for each day.  May we do all IN His strength and TO His glory and drop the false guilt.

I love how The Message communicates Paul’s words to the Colossians in 3:15-17

Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. None of this going off and doing your own thing. And cultivate thankfulness. Let the Word of Christ—the Message—have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives. Instruct and direct one another using good common sense. And sing, sing your hearts out to God! Let every detail in your lives—words, actions, whatever—be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way.