Happy with Ordinary

Even if I knew the world was going to end tomorrow, I would still plant an apple tree today. (Attributed to Martin Luther)

These words sum up for me Michael Horton's main theme in his book Ordinary. Even with the Next Big Thing coming, Luther continues in the work of ordinary life and ministry today.  Using St. Paul's example to the Thessalonians, he writes:

As the day of the Lord approaches, he [Paul] says, believers are “to aspire to live quietly, and to mind [their] own affairs, and to work with [their] hands” (4: 11). It doesn’t sound very world-transforming. Yet it is precisely in the habits that make up a life like this that believers live “properly before outsiders and [are] dependent on no one” (v 12). (p.207)

 "It doesn’t sound very world-transforming." How often do I sit in my study, or while driving to the next meeting,  and think these very words. My ministry will never be written up in a glossy magazine. It doesn't seem like it is going to transform the world. So I sit, and pray, and try to ward off the envy of those whose ministry seems so much better.

But Paul is telling the Thessalonians, and us, that our call is different. In some ways we do not have to transform the world, or even our little piece of it. Because Christ has already done that. And because Christ has done it, we can go about the habits of an ordinary, lived-in ministry. Sitting with a dear old saint in the nursing home who lights up only when she hears Amazing Grace, and knowing that you didn't transform her world. Christ did. And you are there to witness to that.

And imagine what that will mean not only for us, but for our work. The struggle to keep up with the culture is never-ending. You cannot stand forever on the cutting edge. Result-oriented ministry will always end in disappointment or compromise. I leave you with these words from Horton which are words I will tack to the study wall, to keep my focus where it belongs...on Jesus Christ and his world-transforming call.

Now we are free to do the little things that matter, without anxiety about how it all turns out in the end. (p.208)

 Into Christ's hands I place my ministry. Amen.