Extraordinary only exists because of ordinary. If every event or moment were extraordinary, none of them would be. Life is mostly made up of the mundane. If you can find value in putting extraordinary effort into ordinary things, you, my friend, ARE extraordinary.
The JourneyMan
Christmas is about miracles. It’s about extraordinary blessings in ordinary circumstances. Who would pick a stable, a teenage mother, and a weary carpenter preparing to be “Dad” to a child he did not sire as the stage for what the world would forever celebrate as the season of joy, love, and hope?
Who but God?
Christmas reminds us to never overlook the simple things or despise the humble. We tend to celebrate the winners, the conquerors, the beautiful, the elegant, the eloquent the impressive. The miracle of Christmas is that every life, however mundane, however anonymous, however overlooked, matters and is worth celebrating.
The down-and-out often find it easier to believe in the miracle of Christmas than the well-heeled, the ones who believe so mightily in themselves, who feel invincible and indispensable.
Go tell the bigshot Silicon Valley billionaire that his only hope for eternal stability and real significance was born in a stable. Go tell Xi Jinping, China’s godless communist leader, that the Jesus he suppresses to the billion + souls for whom he is responsible is both Savior and King and that one day his own knee will bow to the Babe from Bethlehem and he will confess Jesus Christ as Lord of all. Go tell the doctor aborting life in the womb that a child conceived out of wedlock is the Son of the Living God, the champion of the aborted, the defender of the innocent.
Jesus Christ, the one whose life began and ended in scandal, whose birthplace was a barn, and who died condemned as a common criminal, is the Miracle of Christmas.
He infuses the ordinary with extraordinary. He brings life from death. He interrupts the mundane with miracles.
“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon His shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end.
He will reign on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish and sustain it with justice and righteousness from that time and forevermore.”
“Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary;
His understanding is beyond searching out.He gives power to the faint
and increases the strength of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall.
But those who wait upon the LORD will renew their strength;
they will mount up with wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not faint.”