I’ve been working (feverishly!) on a new blog resource the past few weeks, so I decided to forgo today’s “new” post and re-post an entry from my recent pastoring days. I’ll be back later this week with a new podcast episode, and hopefully a new resource for bloggers by the next new post!
The Five-Mile Walk of Faith
12:30 a.m. – I’m on the verge of pulling a “Saturday night special.” For you non-preachers, a Saturday-night special is a sermon cooked up the night before church because the pastor is well, human. When I cook up a Saturday-night special (which honestly isn’t often) I just admit it.
So this one Saturday night I was sitting in my living room with absolutely nothing to share at church the next day. Then I finally felt God say, “Tell my people I’m the God of the ordinary.”
That got me thinking about that ubiquitous phrase often used to describe the Christian faith: the daily walk. See, I have this tendency to think that every message has to be devil-crushingly life-changing. It’s probably because a big part of my ministry experience has been event-driven: I got to travel a lot when I was younger. It’s easy to be the amazing guest speaker or worship leader people hear just once in awhile. It’s hard to be amazing every week. But this mentality of always having to have awesome can shipwreck us. It makes us addicts and thrill-seekers. And it causes us to overlook the important of the ordinary.
The importance of the ordinary.
Put the daily walk into perspective. Depending on our lifestyle, it’s not beyond reason for people to walk up to 5 miles a day–even without working out! That comes out to about 10,000 steps. Isn’t that crazy? We just don’t realize it because these steps are mundane. The little things you do–or don’t do–have more of a cumulative effect than you think:
- Read a chapter of the Bible a day. That’s 365 chapters a year.
- Pray 2 minutes a day. That’s 12 hours and 15 minutes a year.
- Listen to one worship song a day. That’s almost 25 hours a year (50 hours if it’s a Jesus Culture song).
Take a look at 1 Chronicles 1 from the Bible:
4 The sons of Noah: Shem, Ham and Japheth.
5 The sons of Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshek and Tiras.
6 The sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz, Riphath and Togarmah.
7 The sons of Javan: Elishah, Tarshish, the Kittites and the Rodanites.
I wonder if the guy who wrote this ever thought, ”I am writing a freakin’ all-time best seller. This is hot stuff!” Doubt it. These aren’t the sexy stories that we create devil-crushing sermon series out of. No one wants their pastoral internship to be with the epic scribe that recorded the historical records from Adam to Abraham.
But I treasure these mundane parts of the Bible. They reflect real life. Life is a rhythm of Pebble Beach & Peyton Manning days and SO-SO days: Same Old Same Old. But SO-SO is still God.
Log your 5 miles today.
- Embrace the ordinary. Today is the day the Lord has made; rejoice and be glad in it.
- Log your five miles. The Word, prayer, and worship.
- If you’re logging 5 miles without even thinking about it, think about what more you can get in. Can you read a bit more? Pray a bit more? Love a bit more? Forgive more?
Share your thoughts on the days when your faith feels ordinary below!
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