Philippians 2:6,7 “(Jesus) did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing.”
On one occasion, Mother Teresa of Calcutta was asked: “How do you measure the success of your work?” She looked puzzled for a moment and then replied: “I don’t remember that the Lord ever spoke of success. He spoke only of faithfulness in love. This is the only success that really counts.” She was the living embodiment of what Oswald Chambers meant when he wrote: “It is inbred in us that we have to do exceptional things for God; but we have not. We have to be exceptional in the ordinary things, to be holy in mean streets, among mean people, and this is not learned in five minutes.”
My Granny prayed for me every day of my life – that faithfulness is my kind of extraordinary. A friend of mine read the Bible weekly with a Sikh for twenty two years before the latter came to faith – that’s my kind of extraordinary. Can you accept that definition? Being ‘exceptional in the ordinary things’? ‘Holy in mean streets’? This is not learned in five minutes…
All the more nowadays in our twisted celebrity culture which offers some people at least fifteen minutes of fame, we can aspire wrongfully to pseudo-greatness and recognition. Jesus calls us to another way. To be truly extraordinary is the preserve of the smallest minority, by definition. So in all likelihood you, like me, are relatively ordinary. And yet we ordinary beings serve an extraordinary God, and so are capable of extraordinary things in his name for his glory. But let him be the arbiter. Some exploits are obviously extraordinary, whilst others go unseen, beneath everyone’s radar except the radar of the Most Important One of All.
Dear truly Extraordinary God, help me to choose to be exceptional in the ordinary, for the approval and satisfaction of the Audience of One. Amen!
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