Ordinary

A bit back we took the train to Chicago to hook up with our daughter and grand kids to have a "silly day" in the city.  "Silly Days" are fun days...no real plans, just a lot of improvising and spontaneity, and the only real rule is to enjoy the day to the max.  Sometimes, and especially for the kids, those are the best kind of days.  For example...silliness personified...we went to Marshall Fields and spent about 1/2 hour just riding the escalators.  Since there were 8 floors, there were a lot of escalators, and to the kids it was a real hoot.

Whenever I have taken the train in, I love to look at what we pass.  There is always some really interesting graffiti on the buildings.  On this day, however, it was a sign that really got my attention.  It took up a whole wall of the side of a garage, and it was very well done....and it advertised nothing.  The sign said "I want to be ordinary".  The whole wall was painted red, and the large letters, professionally done, were in black.

The sign really got me thinking....like why on the side of a garage?  I wondered what the intent was of it being there....unless it was simply for folks like me...to see it and to start to think.  My first thought was what is ordinary?  In a nutshell it means basically, nothing special, and...well, just ordinary. 

I'm thinking that sign is a great message for any man, husband, and father.  Here's why:

• each of us wants to be special to our wives and children.  That is very noble, and proper.  And that is exactly what ordinary men, husbands, and fathers should be. 
• each of us should want a solid and close relationship with the Lord.  That is an ordinary want because God made us that way.
• each of us is just a bit broken, and yet God loves us and accepts us as we are.  That is ordinary, because He understands us and forgives us.

Where we get into trouble in our lives is when we try not to be ordinary.  When we try to be something we aren't....like:

• when we make ourselves out to be that which we aren't....for whatever reason
• when we aren't humble
• when we turn behaviors on and off like a light switch
• etc

Jesus was the most ordinary of men ever to roam the earth.  He was a humble carpenter who understood and loved his mission, and fulfilled that mission with more love, compassion, and zeal than a whole country of us modern day men could ever achieve.  He, of all people, could have been "a legend in His own mind"....except He was ordinary.

I think sometimes we just waste so much energy and effort inwardly trying to build those legends in our own minds that we loose sight of how really easy and satisfying it can be to just be ordinary.

Yes, it can be hard to try to be just ordinary.  But isn't that just what God wants us to be?  Just ordinary folks living for Him?  No more, no less.