Everybody is calling us to live an extraordinary life, does that mean God looks the other way when we greet the Askari?

And if we eventually embrace it, who will live for us the normal life we have left behind, everybody is trying to change the world, but who is changing?

You probably brushed your teeth this morning, walked out of the house and took a motorcycle to work where you looked for the stapling machine before you began your ordinary work, or kind of.

You probably do ordinary things like these daily, change diapers, call bodas, get the broker’s number, take out the trash, converse with the vendor, the salon lady, your life is probably dominated by negotiating taxi fares, calling waitresses, and standing in supermarket lines.

Well, or maybe you were probably living this ordinary life until you turned on the television, or your internet data, or went to church, and then you heard the call that ordinary life isn’t enough, yet you had lived it, all week, year in, year out.

The sad thing is when all this high talk is colored with Jesus, when we are told all this motivational stuff is God’s requirement for believers, (and I hear the reply about Christians ‘living life abundantly’) yet I must say abundant life doesn’t exclude the routine stuff, didn’t Jesus’ public ministry follow 30 years of somewhat ordinary carpenter life?

No wonder many of us cannot sustain difficult conversations with a neighbour without doodling on our smartphone. Has the call to extraordinary living blinded us to the moment by moment opportunities to share the gospel with the cobbler across?

Extraordinary is the new norm, average people will not change the world, we are told. But why is everybody running from being ordinary? Why are we, often unchanged people, rushing to change the world?

And Pastors, those supposed to lead the flock by example, are now sounding more like Oprah Winfrey than like Jesus.

The scriptures are not only full of extraordinary people but are also dominated by many who simply and primarily lived an ordinary life, as they encountered God.

Jacob in Laban’s flock, David as a young shepherd, Hannah pleading for a child, Elisha’s people with the borrowed axe.

Even when some of these folks eventually achieved extraordinary feats, we realize how indwelling sin became their biggest undoing, thus requiring an extraordinary saviour.

Jesus, the God-man, the one the Bible is all about, the fulfillment of the scriptures, enters the scene of ordinary folks (and those trying hard to live an extraordinary life) and, unlike us, lived a perfect sinless life achieving for us what we only receive after accepting – we are not extraordinary at all.

We have fallen short, and we need salvation more than we need human elevation.

King Solomon, at the height of his extraordinary life, realized all was vanity, his equally famous dad, King David, at the epitome of his military might, committed adultery and murder, almost back to back. Their seemingly extraordinary lives still needed messianic intervention.

No matter who you seek to emulate in the scriptures, you will realize how much they reached the top and realized they were on the wrong building, except Jesus.

Jesus came so that ordinary needy sinners, would admit their greatest folly, sin, and run to the high priest who has made a way for us to approach the throne of grace with confidence -himself.

Extraordinary living begins with repentance, accounting for indwelling sin and the need for a saviour unlike us, through whom we aspire to be changed before we change the world, that is, if he calls us to it, at all.

So brethren, don’t let high sounding preachers and television hosts scare you out of your ordinary life.

Live well, be ambitious, desire great things but pursue the ordinary too, keep tabs on the normal, take the trash out, meet for coffee, tip the waiter, hug your wife, turn off the notifications, notice the brokenness around you and admit the need for a saviour, greet the Askari, sometimes Its God, not the devil, in the details.

Diaper changing, the chat with a single mother, listening to your maid, cleaning your son’s lunch box are equally as important as your next trip, your startup company, the Annual report, or your master’s program.

The Bible features shepherds, fishermen, tax collectors, and sellers of purple cloth, perhaps because God too, works in the ordinary.