God Speaking

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

The days in Vancouver have become crisp, cold and sunny. As the sun flooded our balcony today I was reminded of one of my friends sharing a fascinating insight on such a day as this. She and her husband had to get up early to reach an old wooden car ferry that was still in use to pull cars across the river near where she lived. As they boarded the ferry the sun had not yet risen and she noticed that a spider had woven an intricate web across the wooden rail and little dew drops had been caught in its flimsy threads. Just as she was observing this, the sun’s rays struck the ferry. She gasped as the very ordinary spider’s web became transformed by the sun. Every little dew drop became a sparkling jewel and the whole web became a shimmering work of art. No longer ordinary. Now extraordinary!

“I am just an ordinary person.” How often have we heard these deprecating words from someone, or perhaps have uttered them about ourselves, believing that there is nothing spectacular about us or our lives? One of the fascinating things I have noticed while reading Scripture is the way God chooses very ordinary people to achieve extraordinary accomplishments for his glory.

Often these ordinary persons are not even given a name, but because of their faith in their Heavenly Father, they are used to bring God glory. One of my favourite stories is found in the book of 2 Kings 5. In the story we are introduced to a little slave girl who has no claim to fame except she has kept her faith in the God of her people. When she learns that her master has developed leprosy, she takes the audacious step of speaking to her mistress about a Godly prophet in her own country who she assures her mistress will be able to heal the master from leprosy. The result of this extraordinary courage of this little girl is the well-known story of Naaman dipping himself seven times in the Jordan and being healed.

The little boy, again we do not know his name, who was willing to share his lunch became part of one of Jesus’ best known miracles, the Feeding of the Five Thousand, and yet everybody who knew him would have thought of him as an ordinary little boy.

Scripture tells us that Peter and John were ordinary men. They were simple fishermen and yet we know the extraordinary way they were able to spread the good news of Jesus Christ even though they had no schooling. (Acts 4:13)

So what is the message for all of us ordinary folk who perhaps feel that everybody else is just that more significant in the eyes of the world. Once we have allowed the Lord Jesus to flood us with the light of his love and forgiveness, we are no longer ordinary in our Father’s eyes. In his eyes we become those extraordinary children in whom he delights.

The story of the spider’s web is a good one to remember when we get those doubts about how significant we are in the big scheme of things. The web was flooded with sunlight and became a joy to behold, but O, how more astounding are our lives when they are flooded with SONLIGHT. We become that new creation Paul was referring to and we can confidently announce…

“I am extraordinary!”

My Personal Favourite Related Article/s

• Five Minute Friday: Ordinary (fightlikegirls.wordpress.com)

Related Articles that are worthwhile reading:

• Extraordinary (loosehim.wordpress.com)
• Extraordinary Love (aprilhawk.wordpress.com)
• ORDINARY PEOPLE: EXTRAORDINARY TASK Mark 14:1-9 Cf. John 12 (tmcklang1908.com)
• Review: At the Throne of Grace (mollystories.wordpress.com)
• Seeing the Ordinary as Extraordinary (wdednh.wordpress.com)
• Forgive me for being so ordinary while claiming to know so extraordinary a God. – Jim Elliot (acrossfields.com)