Finding The Extraordinary In The Ordinary

Finding the Extraordinary from the Ordinary - Cooksey Communications

TUE EP Reflection 012621 (Is 48: 12-21; Mark 6:1-13)

“Go out from Babylon, flee from Chaldea, declare this with a shout of joy, proclaim it, send it forth to the end of the earth; say, ‘The Lord has redeemed his servant Jacob!’ They did not thirst when he led them through the deserts; he made water flow for them from the rock; he split open the rock and the water gushed out.” These verses in Isaiah are about the deliverance of God's people out of their captivity in Babylon. Somehow, I am personally drawn to these verses, because they remind me of a time in my life when I wondered if God was with me. When the situation got so bad, I questioned if God knew this or even cared [I guess I required too much expectation of God, less of myself]. I think I must have been in Babylon or Chaldea in my head according to these verses. This is a kind of place you do not want to be: a place of despair, like when you have no inkling that your doctor understands what is going on and might not figure it out in time to save you: Desperation. I am imagining Babylon also as a place of abandonment, where it feels as if nobody cares about our situation and therefore our option becomes to isolate ourselves. This is a dangerous place to be in our minds. The word of God advises us to flee from such a place like Babylon! Declare the Salvation of God! God says. The Lord is my redeemer! Didn’t He lead the Israelites out through the desert? They were not hungry nor thirsty because God cared for them/ provided for them. Why wouldn’t He provide for us? Perhaps when we are doing ordinary things, we do every day, we tend not to notice the extraordinary. You are so blessed just because you are in a relationship with Christ! What an honor, what a privilege! Christ gave his life willingly for you, he said: Ask my Father what you want, He will give it to you! Wait that sounds extraordinary! What is ordinary is that children of God will ask their Father anything by faith.

Our Gospel lesson today discusses an ordinary moment in Jesus life. Jesus is in His hometown but the people took offense at him. Is not this the carpenter? The son of Mary… Jesus said: Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown and among their own kin… Jesus was amazed at their unbelief.

Could it be that we have been glued to our own ordinary lives for so long that we have become blind to the extraordinary? Like the young child who surprises his/her parents by making them a sandwich; or perhaps a smile from your child, or even those moments of clarity where you know that those answers in your life right now couldn’t have come unless it was God who brought them. Maybe my extraordinary is to move away from Babylon. Believe in Jesus and His Father in Heaven, He is the one who is saying to us in Isaiah: “I am the Lord your God, who teaches you for your own good, who leads you in the way you should go.”

So, all I am saying is that it is possible to be conscious of how we spend our time. There are days I feel like I am in Babylon, so downcast, and fearful so, my task is to get out of Babylon and to start praising God for his blessings in my life. I know it sounds like it is easy to get out of Babylon but with God's help anything is possible! Perhaps there are way more extraordinary moments in your ordinary life than you know. I pray that we would all discover the divine extraordinary in our day-to-day life. Take a moment to see Jesus in all the faces you meet today. Treat them like royalty! It may surprise you how many extraordinary moments you experience.

Amen.

 

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