We read about Abraham, David, Daniel, Esther and others who inspire us as heroes of the faith ... we read about men and women who have accomplished great things for God in church history ... we know of modern day people like Billy Graham and many others who are not so well known who have made a great impact for God through their service and faith. The example of these lives can encourage us as we see what God can do through a human being ... and they can discourage us when we realize that we will never accomplish as much as they have.  But God has not called us to do great things ... He has called us to be faithful to Him in the routines of an ordinary life.

In his book, The Call, Os Guinness writes:

... calling transforms things by reminding us that drudgery is part of the cost of discipleship.  No one has written on this more persistently and bluntly than Oswald Chambers. Repeatedly he hammers home the point that “drudgery is the touchstone of character.”  We look for the big things to do – Jesus took a towel and washed the disciples’ feet.  We presume the place to be is the mountaintop of vision – he sends us back into the valley.  We like to speak and act out of the rare moments of inspiration – he requires our obedience in the routine, the unseen, and the thankless.  Our idea for ourselves is the grand moment and the hushed crowd – his is ordinary things when the footlights are switched off.

After all, Chambers continued,

Walking on the water is easy to impulsive pluck, but walking on dry land as a disciple of Jesus Christ is a different thing. Peter walked on the water to go to Jesus, but he followed Him afar off on the land.  We do not need the grace of God to stand crises, human nature and pride are sufficient, we can face the strain magnificently; but it does require the supernatural grace of God to live twenty-four hours in every day as a saint, to go through drudgery as a disciple, to live an ordinary, unobserved, ignored existence as a disciple of Jesus. 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.[1]

God does not call us to greatness, but to faithfulness [1 Cor. 4:2 niv; Eph. 1:1; Col. 1:2, 7, 4:7, 9; 1 Tim. 1:12]. God calls us to be faithful followers of Jesus in the routines of ordinary lives. Through our faithfulness God will bear fruit for His glory in our lives.

Pastor Jim

[1] Guinness, Os, The Call, pp. 201-202