Making the Ordinary Extraordinary

My prayer got stuck on this thought... Isn't amazing how God uses the seemingly ordinary and makes it extraordinary?  That sounds cheesy, I know, but I was struck by this reading Luke's account on the birth of Jesus in Luke 2:1-14.  For context for those who have not read, Luke focuses mainly on Mary and Joseph and the time in which Jesus was born into.  It blew my mind that the God of the universe had to report in the census.  I mean, He was/is God and He still took to the way of the culture of the day.  He came as an unborn child with Mary, God's sinless masterpiece as his vessel, with Joseph the Terror of Demons by their side and not a soul knew!  They probably traveled with people, neighbors, friends all the way from Nazareth to Bethlehem and they all thought it was business as usual.

But God came there.  He chose to be there.  It was His diveine plan to come to the ordinary.  Not only the ordinary, but something that was seen as a total power move of the Emperor Augustus.  He came to this ordinary event and said, without saying a word, proclaims I am the real and new ruler of this land and of your hearts.

THEN, God was like, I'm not done.  No one has room for Him in Bethlehem because they are OK with their lives being ordinary and He is born in essentially a cave and is placed in a feed trough (a manger) surrounded by animal poop.  He comes into our ordinary s#$t, literally, and transforms it back to beauty.

DOUBLE THEN, God appears to shepherds and tells them of the glorious act and tells them to go find Him there..  And where were they? Living their ordinary lives, at work, being who they were supposed to be that day.  And from there the Scripture says, "the sky opened and a multitude of angels rejoiced" in the presence of these shepherds.

SO MY TAKE AWAY was this… I/we so often neglect God in the ordinary moments of our lives.  he shows us that, if we live the way we are called with everything in the light of his grace, life is not just life.  It is no accident.  There is a flood of grace waiting to be poured out on us if only we let Him into every moment.

That is may prayer this week… join me.