13 Then Samuel took the horn of
oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brethren: and the Spirit of
the Lord came upon David from that day forward. So Samuel rose up,
and went to Ramah. – 1 Samuel 16:13
Our culture disrespects the
ordinary. If it’s not special, superior, showy, or shocking, then it doesn’t
matter.
Is that what God really
wants for our lives? Does God want us to exert ourselves for a flash of fame?
Is there anything wrong with being an ordinary person living a faithful life?
King David was painfully
ordinary. How many miracles did he do? Zero. The showdown against Goliath
happened when he was delivering his brothers’ lunch. If there was anything
noteworthy in his life, it wasn’t David; it was God.
For much of David’s life, he
did the grind. Even after he was anointed by the prophet Samuel to be the next
king, he wasn’t immediate royalty. No, he waited for ten more years—a decade of
suffering and preparation to be the man after God’s own heart. Ten years of
obscurity and monotony, camping solo on the hillside, watching the sheep. Yet
during that season of preparation, David got really good with a slingshot, and
he wrote songs for God. Little did he know he’d face a giant and write much of
the book of Psalms. He just plodded faithfully along where God had placed him.
So much of the pain and
heartache of life come from trying to prove we’re something more. We’re not.
We’re just ordinary. There’s such release and relaxation in this. We don’t have
to feel badly because we don’t look special or have a unique talent, an
exciting job, or a dramatic story. God is very happy for us to be ordinary, to
faithfully live our regular, obscure lives.
Here’s what ordinary life
looks like: the monotonous grind of diapers, cooking, cleaning, laundry, bills,
and a job you may or may not like. Whether or not your sacrifices are
acknowledged or appreciated by others, God sees your faithfulness. God knows,
and He’s keeping track. You need to persevere and be faithful. Wherever God has
placed you, live that ordinary life faithfully for God.
Because if we go back to
David’s story, we see what’s extraordinary about him: God in him. The moment
that Samuel anointed David with oil, “the Spirit of
the Lord came upon David from that day forward.” If
there’s anything exceptional about David’s life, it’s God at work in him.
We see this consistently
through the Bible. Why did Pharaoh appoint Joseph, a foreign criminal, as his
number two official over all of Egypt? “And Pharaoh said unto his
servants, Can we find such a one as this is, a man in whom the Spirit of God
is?” (Genesis 41:38)?
How did lowly Gideon lead a
mighty military rout, though massively outnumbered? “But the Spirit of
the Lord came upon Gideon” (Judges 6:34).
Any success in Samson’s
entire life story is defined by this phrase: “And the Spirit of
the Lord came upon him” (Judges 14:19).
What transformed the
disciples from cowardly into courageous? Jesus told them to go to the upper
room and wait for the Holy Spirit—do not pass GO, do not collect $200, don’t do
anything till you get the Spirit. They didn’t get to do a neighborhood survey
or even work on their brochures. They got in a room and waited for “until
ye be endued with power from on high” (Luke 24:49).
How liberating for us to
realize that we’re ordinary and that the extraordinary thing is always, always,
always God.
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