The Power of Ordinary Days

I remember it like it was last week. The Sunday started just like any other Sunday. I went up early to turn on the lights and make sure the heat was on like I always do. As the morning moved along, we had a great time of worship through song. Someone prayed and I moved towards the pulpit and looked out over the congregation. I was eager to see how God was going to move that day. The sermon was f, about the dangers of an empty heart. After the sermon, I gave an invitation and a few people came down to pray. I gave a few closing announcements, and the service was over. There were no tears of repentance, there was no great movement of God. People worshiped God through song, through the study of His Word, and through fellowship with other believers. That Sunday, in every sense of the word, was just another ordinary Sunday. 

Perhaps you were expecting for this to be another one of those stories that churches like to share.  Just once I would like someone to report that they had a nice ordinary Sunday. Songs were sung, fellowship was had, prayers were made, an offering was given, and the gospel was preached. We hurt the body of Christ, and each other, when we make every Sunday into a huge event. The truth is that most of the Sundays since the resurrection of Christ have been ordinary Sundays. In that same time, the church has grown from a handful in the upper room to millions worshiping in every time zone, language, and ethnicity. There is power in the ordinary. 

We can fall into the trap of thinking that the ordinary Sundays in our church are too plain to be used of God, but these are just the types of days that God uses to grow people in faith and bring his Kingdom about on the earth. Ordinary things in the hands of an extraordinary God become the miraculous means by which He brings about His kingdom.

Remember that God is at work in the ordinary just as much as he is in the miraculous. We might plant and water, but God is always the one who gives the increase. It's possible that God can make an oak tree grow overnight. But it's more likely that God will guide that tree as it grows slowly over 100 years. Both are acts of God. 

But that doesn’t mean we don’t long to see the miraculous.  We pray for these things because we know we worship a God who works in these ways. The God of the Welsh Revival, the Great Awakening, and the Protestant Reformation is the same God who works in the service at the country church down a dirt road and the mega church in the big city. . God is capable, and I pray that He is willing, to move in that way. 

I long to see God move in miraculous ways in my church, and as the service starts each week, I pray that He does. Whenever the body of Christ gathers together for fellowship, worship, and proclamation, we should never be disappointed. It is always a joy to gather with the people of God, even if the Sunday does not go down in the history books. Psalm 84:10 puts it best. "For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand outside. I would rather stand at the threshold of the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.”