We’re all quite ordinary, confined to our skin, defined by our limitations. We rehearse our boundaries. We know how tall the walls of our shortcomings are. We’ve counted the financial, emotional, and occupational bricks in our way. And one large hurdle is our little faith.
We’ve forgotten that earthly strategies are reversed in God’s Kingdom. We’re not required to be tall and mighty; it is by our God we run through a troop and leap over a wall. It’s not in the exhibition of our special gifts that victories are won; it’s in our bending to His extraordinary ways that great things are done. In us, through us, to others. In His economy, yielding causes us to conquer.
Moses, a man of like passions, performed wonders before Pharaoh, won the loyalty of millions, and led an entire nation through desert places to the brink of disaster only to see an uncrossable body of water open up at the tip of his staff.
Yet he didn’t consider himself a gifted speaker or a fit leader. He begged God to choose another. His countrymen were distrustful of him demanding to know who had appointed him their judge. His adopted family hunted his head because of his betrayal. Moses did not appear to be voted most likely to succeed.
Fortunately, success isn’t dependent on the opinion of others or the sum of our capabilities. It’s determined by the direction of our hearts.
Moses had a heart bent with passion for God and compassion for others. He empathized with his enslaved countrymen, inserting himself into their disputes. He defended the mistreated women at the well of Midian, making himself both their rescuer and servant, drawing water for them. And when God showed up in the desert, Moses turned aside from his task at hand to behold and contemplate and respond to the display of God’s presence, a fire that burned without consuming.
And we come to think upon Moses as extraordinary. A man out of our league. Let’s keep our perspective clear. It is GOD that is out of our league! But He condescends. His eyes run to and fro throughout the earth looking to show Himself strong on behalf of them whose heart is toward Him. His eyes roam the world looking for faith. Not for remarkable abilities or enlarged bank accounts. Not for self confidence or introspective souls. He looks to see who looks back. Who turns aside to see, to contemplate, and wonder and adore.
God performs His wonders in all places, but few turn aside to see. His mighty acts are done and it pleases Him to accomplish many of them through common vessels. Ordinary people.
Who are then regarded by other ordinary people as extraordinary, simply because they yielded to an extraordinary God.
If we’re invested in our pursuits because we long to be amazing, our eyes look inward, and our lives become as narrow as our gaze. If we’re invested in pursuing the Amazing One, our eyes look outward and upward, and our lives become as rewarding as our vision.
