“The time that the people of Israel lived in Egypt was 430 years.” Exodus 12:28
My calendar contains much anticipation. Days are designated for future purposes, months in advance. Yesterday, I took my kids snow skiing. It was an event that occupied a spot on my calendar for months.
However, calendars never seem to diminish of special days and obligations. Even while my children and I were sliding down snow covered mountain sides, my wife registered my son for his next NCFCA speech and debate tournament. One special day was replaced by another.
I understand that this experience is merely a result of living in an organized and responsible manner. However, a fixation on future special days can steal the exceptional from the intervening days of ordinary. That is a great loss.
The ordinary typifies the children of God. Consider how long the descendants of Abraham resided in Egypt. Centuries pasted from the time Joseph welcomed his father and brothers to Egypt to the time Moses came to lead them to the Promised Land.
The Bible is silent about these intervening years but that does not mean God was not at work. He created a nation in those silent years. A family came into Egypt and after 430 years of ordinary, a nation left. That is pretty special.
God still creates the special in our ordinary.
God sanctifies us in the day-in and day-out of the ordinary. It is through the reliance upon Him in the mundane that the Spirit transforms our hearts by an imperceptible degree or two.
God draws our children to Himself through the faithful everyday examples of parent and grandparent who are living a real and vibrant faith.
God is magnified before those who don’t know him by His followers’ unusual reactions to everyday difficulties.
God still builds for Himself a nation in the ordinary. He is doing it today as I prepare to go to work. He will be doing it today as my wife teaches our children. He will be on display as I respond to clients and coworkers. It will happen in the ordinary evening I spend with my family before I go to bed.
God will be doing glorious works throughout this very ordinary day.
May we not lose the blessings of the ordinary in our addiction to the spectacular.
PRAYER: Lord, thank you for all the special days that you have blessed my family and I with. Thank you for doing wonderful works in my life that have caused me to praise and draw close to you. Father, I equally thank you and am grateful for all the ordinary days that you have given me. Thank you for the spectacular work you will do in me and my family today even though I may scarcely notice it. Thank you for the incremental transformations in my life that you are continually blessing me with through these long ordinary day. Father, continue that work in my life and the lives of my family. Lord, open my eyes so that I never diminish your spectacular work in the ordinary. I pray this in the precious name of your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.
A DEVOTED LIFE 