Key Scripture: Acts 3:19 "Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.
It is the will of God that we become great in our ordinary, everyday, often mundane, day in and day out situations of life.
It is the ordinary that prepares us for the extraordinary opportunities in life.
God is a God of order and He has established an ordinary, dependable, set pattern of life.
As with everything else there is a main stream to life and then there are extremes. The mainstream we often call normal. What may be normal to one person or group may not always be normal for another. God makes us different for His purposes and joins us together setting us into families, churches and other group oriented endeavors as it pleases Him.
What may be an extreme, tributary to one group might just be the normal mainstream for another. However, God uses our normal flow of life to bring balance to one group while stretching another and perhaps even slowing some down. Way out people aren’t way out to others who are way out … in fact … some way out people for me are at times a bit too conservative for others who are really way out … and then, I am way out there for some.
Suffice it to say that God has a race for each of us to run and it is He Who decides if and when we are ready to run and what team we would best compliment. He sets us in the race as it pleases Him.
Isaiah 40 NKJV
28 Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the LORD, The Creator of the ends of the earth, Neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable.
29 He gives power to the weak, And to those who have no might He increases strength.
30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary, And the young men shall utterly fall,
31 But those who wait on the LORD Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.
We can readily see the difference between running and walking. As with any race more time is spent training and preparing for the race than is actually spent running that race. If we have prepared correctly we shall be able through the Lord to run and not quit running before our heat is over.
However, it is not running the race that people often fail at, rather it is the daily walk where people faint.
The sheer excitement of race day makes our adrenaline flow and our heart beat, knowing we are about to engage in an exciting moment of life … perhaps something we were born for, have been waiting for … this is where heroes are made, winners are discovered, medals are awarded, races won.
Not so in the everyday, out of season, walks of life … enduring the training sessions, the boring alone time getting mentally prepared, physically in shape, spiritually sound … the times when there are no crowds, no supporters, no competitors, often no adrenaline and no real excitement. These account for most of the days of our life … normal days! These days we often crave the race, hunger to show our stuff, desirous to be dynamically used by God but seemingly unengaged and at times feel unproductive.
Perhaps some miss the point of these days and faint - quit. You see, many are called but few are chosen. I believe that one reason why few make it to the winner’s circle is because few were not prepared on their race day … they fainted doing the ordinary --- normal was too hard for them.
In Genesis 8 God told Noah:
Genesis 8:22 "While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest, Cold and heat, Winter and summer, And day and night Shall not cease."
God is describing the ordinary, every year, predictable cycles of life.
But ordinary is not all there is to life …
Ezekiel 34:26 "I will make them and the places all around My hill a blessing; and I will cause showers to come down in their season; there shall be showers of blessing.”
Perhaps we can see one of those showers of blessing in:
Acts 19 NKJV
11 And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul:
12 So that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them.
The New International Version says “extraordinary miracles”
This means that these things did not normally occur … they were not ordinary.
However much, if not most, of Paul’s life was taken up with the ordinary … writing letters, travel, days in jail, days on a ship, working a job, employed in making tents for a living. This man is the man who said, “If you don’t work, neither should you eat!” Paul was engaged in life, an often normal, ordinary life that prepared him and took him and qualified him for those extraordinary moments we all love and read about. Those ‘special miracle’ moments …
In Matthew 17 the glory cloud of God spoke and revealed that God did not want Peter, James and John to remain in their mountain top experience and build a church there … rather He wanted that extraordinary experience to inspire them as they went back down off the hill and got involved in the ordinary everyday lives of men and women.
So what do I hear the Spirit of God saying to us tonight?
Be ready … times of refreshing are coming from the Lord … special miracle moments, extraordinary miracle moments, and showers of blessings are on their way and they will come through those who do not faint in their walk but have become great in their ordinary.
The blessings in the book of Revelation belong to those who overcome. May God grace us to be great in our ordinary, overcome the temptation to not enjoy the normal and be prepared for the extraordinary opportunities which are surely coming our way.
