Offer the Ordinary

It has been a few weeks since I’ve written anything, and quite honestly, I considered taking a break from writing. The reason for both is the same: since coming back from Togo, France, Greece, and Kenya life has just been so...well, normal.

Uneventful, I’m tempted to say. 

And for some reason, I’ve equated normal and uneventful with uninteresting. Not worth writing about. After all, I’m not delivering a hundred babies a month anymore or feeding refugees or sharing the gospel in the African bush. I’ve been doing a lot of picnics with my mom, bike rides with my dad, and quiet moments with Jesus. And how do you make entertaining stories out of that? 

When I first started writing this blog, it’s first design had a banner across the top that read something like this: the presence of God turns the ordinary into extraordinary. I’m embarrassed to say that I actually forgot how it read exactly, which explains why I’ve wandered from it’s motivation. This blog was intended to take everyday, ordinary stories and draw deep into the well of spiritual application that is ever-present if we have the eyes to see it. It’s a way of telling modern day parables. It is looking longer at what we would consider common and choosing to see something more. 

I’m afraid I’ve forgotten about the ordinary part and focused on the extraordinary. Ever since moving to Africa, I was prompted to write when something interesting or motivating or unusual happened, which was actually quite regularly. And although these “extraordinary” stories might be entertaining and still spiritually applicable, it gives the impression that our lives have to be interesting to be meaningful. That’s even what I believed for a while.

Now I think what actually might be more faith-filled, God-glorifying, and obedience-demanding is giving God our ordinary. It’s easy to go Jesus-crazy on a mission trip and live on a spiritual high when you are surrounded by something exceptionally Christian. But what about the everyday? What about the picnics and the bike rides and the never ending dishes and the eight-to-five job where you actually spend the vast majority of your time? How do we live for God Almighty and share the gospel of Jesus in those mundane and normal activities? 

For me it was this question: What about when you’re not in Africa?

People like to ask me how it is being back, to which I have about ten different answers. Somedays being in the United States feels totally familiar. Other days I feel like a foreigner. Some days I don’t think about Africa once; other days I can’t get my mind off it. Some days I’m delighted to have instant access to ice cream; other days I’m so overwhelmed by the thousands of boxes of cereal on the cereal aisle that it makes me want to either cry or tear all the boxes off the shelf - because of the inequality in our world and the unequal distribution of resources and justice and the unaware hoarding of rich people - all of which actually has nothing at all to do with cereal. 

But every day, whether I’m missing Africa or not, I’ve been changed by it. And the way Jesus changed me in Africa affects how I live in America. What God did in the extraordinary moments has trained me and prepared me for the ordinary days. 

This year has actually been the easiest transition back, and today I finally realized why. 

My concept of missions has changed over the last five years. I started out as a passionate and wonderfully naive but teachable girl who wanted to live in poverty among the poor and give compassionate care to meet needs and hopefully eventually share the gospel. And there is nothing inherently wrong with that, but let’s just say my focus has shifted. It’s shifted away from relief from physical poverty and more towards deliverance from spiritual poverty. It’s shifted away from meeting people’s needs and more towards being their friend. It’s shifted away from solving people’s problems and more towards walking through suffering with them. It’s become less about development work and more about just introducing people to Jesus. 

If their poverty and our solutions is the focus, Africa is indeed vastly different from America, and no wonder the transition back and forth between the two would be shattering. 

If telling hope-hungry, truth-searching people about Christ is the focus, then there is practically no difference between Africa and America. For sin and spiritual darkness is present in every country in the world, but so is the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. The difference is that sin and darkness chase people down to hold them captive to fear, and God pursues people to free them into his love. And people in America need that just as much as the refugees in the Mediterranean and the Muslims in Africa. 

That simple truth has made all the difference in the world for me in coming back to the United States. Because changing my location and my surroundings did not change my identity or my purpose. I’m still on mission. I’m still living with the same extraordinary purpose, and I’m still surrounded by opportunities to share Christ with people regularly. 

So call it what you want. Living a normal life while abiding in Christ, walking in obedience to him even in the mundane tasks, and making the most of every opportunity to share the gospel with your neighbors, whether you live in a hut in Africa, an apartment in France, or a house in suburban America - Is that ordinary or extraordinary? 

Life isn’t meaningful because it’s eventful. Our stories aren’t worth telling because they are interesting. Life has meaning and our stories have purpose only when Christ enters in. He does turn the ordinary into extraordinary. He still transforms water into wine. Be faithful and obedient in the rhythm of the routine, in the mundane, and in the normalcy. Bring Christ into your ordinary, and get ready to see something more.