Brothers & Sisters,    

Are you looking to enrich your life and the lives of others in 2018? Give yourself to the ordinary things:

 We must beware of missing the value of the ordinary by seeing it as just one more means to greatness. True, there are many ordinary people who, precisely through their ordinary callings, sometimes make an extraordinary impact. Yet it is just as true that ordinary lives have an ordinary impact that is beautiful in its own right. The choice had to be made, hardly earth-shattering at the moment, between ignoring a child’s complaint or taking her to the doctor. By choosing the latter, the busy mother saved her daughter’s life.

            Less catastrophic but no less dangerous is the choice to do something big when something small is exactly what’s called for in the moment. The habit of reading stories to children at bedtime is often tedious. Family and private devotions can be tedious as well. SO too can daily homework be a chore for students, along with grading for teachers. Making rounds is often tedious for doctors and nurses. Yet daily faithfulness to these callings – more accurately, to God and the neighbors he has called us to serve – is precisely what enriches life (Michael Scott Horton, Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2014, 165-166).

 Warmly in Christ,

Mike