I love this quote from shame and vulnerability researcher, Brene Brown:
“The overwhelming message in our culture today is that an ordinary life is a meaningless life unless you are grabbing a lot of attention and you have lots of Twitter followers and Facebook fans who know everything you know. I use the shame-based fear of being ordinary as my definition for narcissism. I definitely see it in younger generations, where people fear they are not big enough. No matter how happy and fulfilling their small, quiet life is, they feel it must not mean very much, because it’s not the way people are measuring success. Which is just terrifying.”
The fear of being ordinary is real. I see it a lot working in Christian publishing - in others and especially in myself. For most writers, their book is only "successful" and "valuable" if a ton of people have read it. Otherwise, it's a complete failure. So a lot of people make it their goal to get noticed, to get famous, to create some kind of worldwide ministry, but God says, "Make it your goal to live a quiet life, minding your own business and working with your hands" (1 Thess. 4:11, NLT).
The definition given for the Greek word translated as "quiet" is: "to lead a quiet life, said of those who are not running hither and thither, but stay at home and mind their business." Part of me really wants a quiet life. But the other part of me fears that if my life is too quiet, I'll go unnoticed. My contribution will no longer be seen as valuable at work. My relationships will grow stale. I'll get left behind in the rat race and be seen as irrelevant. I'll be too ordinary.
But then I look at Jesus' life.
We don't know much at all about the first 30 years of Jesus' life, presumably because they were ordinary. We do get one short report in Luke 2 about 12-year-old Jesus talking with the teachers of the law in the temple complex and asking them questions. "And all those who heard Him were astounded at His understanding and His answers" (Luke 2:47). Besides that, we know Jesus worked as a carpenter, and He did what other humans do: He ate, He slept, He spent time with family and friends. His life was so ordinary that, when He eventually started His ministry and taught in the synagogue in Nazareth, the people who had known Him since He was a child said, “Where did this man get these things? ... What is this wisdom given to Him, and how are these miracles performed by His hands? Isn’t this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon?” (Mark 6:2-3). They just couldn't believe that Jesus was capable of such extraordinary things.
The ordinariness of the first 30 years of Jesus' life affirms the goodness of our ordinary lives. We're not called to seek celebrity status (if the Lord chooses to give it, that's up to Him); we're called to daily obedience. We're called to show the love of Christ in whatever context He's placed us. We're called to be messengers of the gospel to the community God has providentially placed us in. We're called to do whatever it is the Father has put us on the earth to do. Nothing more and nothing less.
A verse I've been thinking on for the past couple of weeks is John 6:38, when Jesus said, "For I have come down from heaven to do the will of God who sent me, not to do my own will" (John 6:38).
His will, not my will. That's what I'm here for.
Side note: One of my top ten favorite books is Our Town, which really celebrates the ordinariness of life as being extraordinary. And my favorite quote in it is this one: "Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it - every, every minute?"
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