When the Extra-ordinary is the Ordinary!

Have you ever been guilty of sitting in church on a fine Sunday morning, listening to a rousing sermon… and suddenly find your thoughts going down a rabbit trail that may… or may not… be related to the subject of the sermon?  Well… I’ll be the first to raise my hand and admit that I have… on many occasions through the years!

I am not sure why, but I have received some wonderful revelations from God through that still-small-voice* on inside of me during such times.  I would admit though, that for me, the vast majority of those rabbit trails did directly relate to or branch off from the Sunday morning subject!

And it happened again yesterday morning!  The pastor had just begun her sermon entitled “Empowered to do the work” and had us turning (or in my case, clicking) in our Bibles to John 20:22, where Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit into the disciples during His first visit with them after He was raised from the dead… and bingo!  I was on my way down another trail that began with the thought “that Piper and I had built an atmosphere of faith around our family.”

The path yesterday was a little different than other trails I’ve found myself going down, as I was still hearing and alert to the Pastor’s words and was even taking notes… in fact, two sets at the same time!  One for her lesson and the other for what I felt the Lord was personally sharing with me.

The simple fact is that we raised our family differently than most of the others in our extended families.  Sure, there were some similarities, but there were also some characteristics and traits that were priorities to Piper and me.  There were the visible things like homeschooling when everyone… and I pretty much mean everyone in both of our families… thought that we had lost our minds. 

There was our church involvement, which when you’re the Assistant Pastors there automatically tends to be a lot of that… but our experience was unique in that we were over the Student Ministries and therefore got to involve and work with our own kids throughout their childhood and teen years.  Church participation and ministry was in many ways, a family event for us!

But as I listened simultaneously to the Pastor speaking with my physical ears and that still-small-voice* quietly speaking on the inside of me, I realized that some of the main personal characteristics and/or what the Bible calls “The fruit of the Spirit”** that are deeply engrained in the makeup of who our kids are today, were “caught” more than they were directly “taught” by Piper and me.  I aways tend to give Piper the majority of the credit when it comes to the homeschooling and nurturing of our kids… and rightly so, but in this respect, I would have to also admit that I played a vital role in what the kids “caught” in our home!

It was simply a part of Piper and me.  It was a constantly growing and fluid part of us.  It was the way we interacted between the two of us whether we were alone or with the kids, at church, in the neighborhood, at the store, on vacation or when visiting family and friends.  What they saw… anytime day and night… was what they got!

I remembered a couple of scriptures that I’d been studying over the last week as all this was going through my consciousness yesterday, where the word “extraordinary” was used to describe the works of God through the hands of different individuals in the New Testament and that which are also available and possible for us today!

There was the verse I’ve alluded to in a couple of my last posts where the people present when Jesus was teaching in a house, reacted in awe after they witnessed a miraculous event and declared, “We have seen extraordinary things today!"***  Then a more recent study where I found it stated that “God did unusual and extraordinary miracles through the hands of Paul.”****

Then another light went on and I understood that in our daily routines of life, we never allowed God’s Word to become ordinary to us… for in our constant pursuit of our child-like faith… His Word always stayed “extra-ordinary” to us!

And the LEGACY of that lifestyle that was observed and “caught” in our home… no matter which of the different neighborhoods where we lived over the years… is that which is evident and very visible in our adult children and their family’s today!

We live in a world that is constantly changing, consistently being shaken and moved by the current flavor of our society, where fear is prevalently featured in the daily news, highlighted as the basis for questionable political agendas and disguised as the norm in formulating the underlining motives employed to sell many of the products, we see advertised on the various media platforms.

But those vacillating values and fears don’t have to move those of us who view the extra-ordinary values and power of the Word of God over and above what the world has to offer.  Instead, our dependence and faith in the extra-ordinary essence of the Word can empower our lives to be much more successful, stable, happy and meaningful!

By keeping the Word as the “extra-ordinary” power and source of your life, you will always experience the victory over the ordinary pressures, lies and fears of the world in which we live.

Then... when you step out your front door each day, you’ll quietly smile and confidently proclaim, “Now thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and makes known through us the fragrance of His knowledge in every place.” (KJV) 

I pray that you have a great week as you keep EXPECTING His best in your life… and in doing so, keep His Word EXTRA-ORDINARY in your every thought, word and action!

*See: I Kings 19:12, Job 4:12,16

**Galatians 5:22-23

***Luke 5:26  (EMTV)

****Acts 19:11  (AMP)