In the sermon this past Sunday, our pastor made a statement that really spoke to me. He was talking about the Bible study he does each year and how, at some point during the study, someone points out the types of people that God uses to pass along his message. Our pastor’s response? “Isn’t it amazing? He makes the extraordinary from the ordinary.”
When our pastor said this, it felt like a light went off in me. So often I feel as though I lead an ordinary life. I will say, “I’m just a stay at home mom,” or “I just live in a small home,” or any other number of “justs” that define my life. In the end, my life is very ordinary. I haven’t done anything noteworthy or anything that is particularly memorable.
And yet, people like me are the perfect vessel for God to use to do extraordinary things. Will it be something that is written in a book or spoken of for centuries to come? Most likely not. But what is extraordinary to God?
We read stories of Noah and the ark, Moses and Aaron working to free an entire people from Egypt, not to mention the works of the Apostles to spread the word of Jesus following his resurrection. We the faithful yearn to be used in extraordinary ways such as these.
But is this the only way that is extraordinary?
Is it not extraordinary to organize a camp for children to come and learn the word of God and become closer to the love of Jesus? Is it not extraordinary to lead a group of adults in a study of His word? Is it not extraordinary to look at our lives, everyday, and have faith and trust in God that He will take care of us and to demonstrate this kind of dependence on God that shows our faith?
In today’s world, showing our faith in these ways in extraordinary. Working with missions, spreading God’s love, and being in ministry with other Christians is exactly the kind of extraordinary that God is giving us the opportunity to be a part of.
In Jesus’s sermon on the mount, he said the meek, the hungry, the poor in spirit, and the peacemakers will be the ones who God will use. Those who hunger for God’s redeeming power, who submits themselves to God’s will are those who will be extraordinarily used by Him.
He didn’t say that those who have the money to buy whatever they want will be extraordinarily used. He didn’t say that those who have unlimited power will be the only ones used by God. It is those who are the most unlikely, the most unassuming, who will be used. In this way, we should be looking and willing to be used by God at any time to do His works. We don’t have to wait until we are rich and famous to expect a calling from Him.
In Paul’s letters to the Romans, he wrote about being used to do extraordinary things even when we are an ordinary people.
For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.
Romans 12:3-8
Paul reminds us that we are each having gifts that God has given us to do His works. We shouldn’t look or wish for ourselves to do things that are not our strengths. We are each meant to be a piece of a larger work, not to be the entire work ourselves.
When we each use our particular gifts to further our faith and to spread Jesus’s love, we are allowing God to use us in extraordinary ways.
When we stop comparing our lives, our actions, and our faith to how others are and we start focusing internally in how we can serve God and be a better disciple, we will find that we have gifts that God has given us that need to be used. Sometimes we will find that God has been trying to send us a sign or a message in how He wants to use us and we’ve been ignoring it or missing it. When we allow Him to lead us where we should be, our gifts can be used in extraordinary ways.
God calls us to be extraordinary using the gifts that we have been given. It is in this way that he is making the extraordinary from the ordinary.