Can I just say that the past three days following my Mega Sports Camp experience have been quite interesting. It seems like everywhere I go now, I am seeing some of my dance girls. Friday at Meijer I saw 2 of the girls. Then last night at Wal-Mart I got to see three more, and their families...very cool! Then today, one of the little girls and her family came to a picnic our church held to celebrate and honor those who serve our country. I can't even tell you how many times she ran back to me to give me just one more hug.
I love the fact that church and community are overlapping. I love that my interaction with these children and their families isn't limited to the three days of sports camp, but that I am being given opportunities to see them and be seen in every-day life kind of ways. I think that it's in the every-day way we live that we have the greatest impact on those who have taken notice of us. They may know us from a certain event or encounter or moment. But it's that introduction that causes them to observe us more carefully to see how we are every day.
Not long ago, in prayer, I was seeking God for some direction and that sort of thing regarding my own life, as well as for my family as a whole. He spoke something very simple to me: 'Live extraordinary in the midst of ordinary.' Then He immediately listed off Biblical examples for me - some of whose stories I had never read, so I had to go searching. Moses. Ester. Ruth. David. Peter. Paul.
Ruth was one of the stories I had to go looking for. I even had to read it a few times over to understand what exactly it was that she did so extraordinarily, because she appears to be quite ordinary. But I realized that she loved extraordinarily. She responded to Naomi with an extraordinary love and loyalty. A selflessness that goes above and beyond. She responded this way simply because it was her nature, not because she expected great things to come of it. But in doing so, she not only secured her family situation - a situation that had been quite shaky and worrisome for a time - but she also established herself as a member of the lineage of Jesus Christ. Her life was very ordinary, but she lived extraordinarily. She impacted the lives of others around her for the better. She shaped the course of her life, and of generations to follow. Ruth's extraordinary responses to ordinary circumstances impacted, shaped, changed the world forever. Her life became a layer upon which our lives have been built so many seemingly countless years later. That is the kind of life that God can use.
As I read through stories like Ruth's, and as I realize that in my own life my actions and responses to circumstances - every day ordinary circumstances - are being observed, and are shaping the ideas and attitudes of those observing me, I am challenged to press into Jesus more than I ever have before, so that His ways become mine. So that my natural manner of responding is one that will accurately reflect Him and that will please Him and honor Him. So that when others are watching, even when I am unaware or unsuspecting, they will see a life lived extraordinarily, no matter how ordinary the circumstances may be, and God will receive the glory for it. I want my life to be one that God can use.
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