ordinary

There are a lot of reasons not to do things, but one of the most common is that we think we’re not the right person. We’re not highly educated. We’re not very experienced. We’re young, or at least younger than the people we perceive as leaders.

But Peter and John, a couple of fishermen away from the sea, healed a man and were put on trial for it. And all of those educated, experienced, older men couldn’t figure it out. In fact, it says this in Acts 4:13: “When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.”

Unschooled, ordinary men and women have always been God’s choice as he goes about his work. Oh, he uses the other kind, too, people with doctorates and long resumes, but you don’t read about them much in the Bible.

No, God loves the world, mundus in Latin, the root of our English word mundane. God loves the ordinary. He loves the Joe and Jane Lunchbuckets who wake up early every morning to go to their shift-work jobs. He loves the farmer grandpas and inner city grandmas who worked for decades and are still working because they want so many things for their families. He loves the soccer moms with their frantic school-and-work schedules, and the ladder-climbing dads straining to get on the rung that means security. He loves the single men and women who bounce between inclusion and loneliness, and the childless couples who pour out their love on people who aren’t family. He loves this world in all of its day-to-day normality, and all of the men and women in it, with no regard to schooling or status.

It’s a huge encouragement, because it means I don’t have to be any more than what I am to serve him, and win his love. He already loves me, and has plenty of uses for me if I’ll just step up. No training necessary. No experience required. I can start amazing those so called “betters” immediately.

Because I have the same thing Peter and John had. I’ve been with Jesus.