Four-Calendar Café

Scripture

2 Kings 5:11-14 (NIV)

11 But Naaman went away angry and said, “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy.
12 Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?” So he turned and went off in a rage.
13 Naaman’s servants went to him and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed!’” 14 So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy.

Observation

It’s funny how our minds work. We know that God created all things but often when we think of Him we think of the very big and the very small. Although we might think that we consider all that He has made, and stand in awe, we may forget that he created the ordinary, commonplace things that we see every day, and take for granted. Just as we walk through life not paying much attention to the ordinary, we do the same, I believe, in our thought life.

God is always speaking to us but we just don’t realize it (Job 33:14). We all have thoughts, throughout our day, that are basically the same from day-to-day. When there’s something that is out of place then we’ll take note of it. Perhaps, just for a moment, and then we’ll move on. We respond to our thoughts in the same way that we respond to anything outside of us that happens. That’s to say that we are so accustomed to how we respond to the things we encounter every day that they become ordinary.

There’s something that takes place in our minds when we think of God as ordinary. He’s not, right? He. Is. God. His thoughts are not my thoughts and His ways are not my ways (Isaiah 55:8). God doesn’t put His shirt on one arm at a time. He wills it to be on and it’s on. We can imagine God in all sorts of ways except ordinary. We don’t like ordinary. There’s so much ordinary around us every day that we want something special. We want something big and we expect big things from God. What does the Bible tell us? If we are faithful with little things then we can be trusted to be faithful with bigger things (Luke 16:10).

How is God described in the Bible? When He comes to Elijah, he’s not in the mighty rushing wind or the great earthquake or flashy fire. No, God spoke in a gentle whisper (1 Kings 19:11-13). Like a thought that tells you something very ordinary like, “Good morning.” When God came down as the man, Jesus, He wasn’t a handsome man, He didn’t stand out in a crowd. “There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him” (Isaiah 53:2). Jesus looked like an ordinary guy.

When Jesus speaks of being great in the Kingdom of God, how does He describe this greatness? “The greatest among you will be your servant” (Matthew 23:11). Jesus never tells us that we have to do great and mighty works to serve Him. All of us want to heal the sick, raise the dead and bring deliverance to those in bondage. There’s nothing wrong with that, but what about doing the ordinary things that we don’t do every day because, well, we can blow them off because they don’t mean anything. Right?

We have all trained ourselves to respond to our daily thoughts in the same way. However, what’s ordinary for you might not be ordinary for me and vice versa. I believe that we all have a little bit of Naaman in us. The belief that to do something great we need to do something great, but God just doesn’t work that way, and if you’re waiting for God to put enormous challenges in front of you that will test your faith… Well, you may be waiting a long time. However, allow me to encourage you that every time you do something tiny and seemingly ordinary, in faith, that you are demonstrating that you have the means to do the bigger things that God will ask you to do later on. So, let’s go do something, ordinary.

Do you know God? God knows you and He loves you. He sees you as significant because you are. He’s with you today, right now and He wants you to know Him. Jesus died for your sins and mine so that we could be free of guilt, be freed from death, and live eternally with Him. Eternal salvation is just a prayer away.

Pray this prayer with me to accept the gift of salvation today:

Dear Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner, and I ask for Your forgiveness. I believe You died for my sins and rose from the dead. I turn from my sins and invite You to come into my heart and life. I want to trust and follow You as my Lord and Savior. Amen.

If you prayed that prayer then congratulations! You are on the first step of a brand new life. Allow me to be the first to welcome you to my family, the family of God. There are abundant resources available online for new Christians. You can visit here for more information on what to do next. You can also leave me a comment and I’ll do my best to help you on the next step of this incredible journey.