brilliant moments and ordinary days

Summer vacation, my birthday, Christmas, and even the first day of school were the best days of the year for me as a young girl. These special days brought unique traditions for each one.

Summer vacation meant we'd be out of school to play with friends and some years we'd go to visit family in Tennessee or Georgia. My birthday meant Mama would bake a yummy, homemade cake for our family just because it was my day--and I might even get a present, too. The first day of school was exciting because I'd see all the friends I'd missed over the summer and there were all those neat, new, school supplies to use. Christmas meant family, food, presents for everyone and Jesus' birthday.

I looked forward to each of these great days with much anticipation because they were the highlights of my year. Between each one of them were many regular days of getting up, eating, dressing, chores and going to school. You know, the ordinary days. Real life days of the commonplace.

Oswald Chambers writes, "Has the Lord ever asked you--'Wilt thou lay down thy life for My sake?' It is far easier to die than to lay down the life day in and day out with a sense of high calling. We are not made for brilliant moments but we have to walk in the light of them in ordinary ways...For thirty-three years Jesus laid out His life to do the will of His Father...If I am a friend of Jesus, I have deliberately and carefully to lay down my life for Him. "

What brilliant moments have you had in your life with the Lord? The miracle beside your dad's hospital bed? A long lost child come home? Finances supplied at just the right time from an unexpected place? The Lord directing your path so clearly there is no room for error and then making the way for it to come to pass? A successful missions trip? An eagerly anticipated project begun and completed? A quiet, tender moment with Jesus just when you needed it most? What blessings! What miracles! What brilliant moments in our spiritual history--in our lives with Christ!

Then comes Monday morning and it's time for work, or school, or housecleaning and taking care of the children. Our lives happen one day at a time. Not a holiday at a time, or a birthday or an event, but moment by moment, one day at a time. It's the way we do anything, really. Inch by inch--step by step...one foot after another. It's how we serve the Lord too. One thought, one prayer, one need, one blessing.

When we look at the lives of the great people we know in the Lord--our mothers, fathers, pastors, sisters and brothers in the Lord--we see years of faithfulness, deeds done, and prayers answered yet they were all done day by day. Not one of them lived a whole season at once. Sometimes life is exciting but it is the everyday walk with Jesus that adds up to this successful life for God. The Lord doesn't ask for us to slay dragons or perform superhuman heroic deeds. He says walk with him.

Micah 6:8 He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

Walking humbly with the Lord--how beautiful!

Father, help me simmer down and walk humbly with you daily--between the special times and brilliant moments.

Suz