Feb
4
2016
Seeing The Ordinary
Posted in Daily Living 2 Comments
My husband put a few outlet adapters around our house.
He put one in the family room to accommodate a few things that needed to be plugged in.
He put one in each of the bathrooms to accommodate hair dryers and electric toothbrushes.
He put one at my dressing table so that I can listen to news radio while drying my hair.
I appreciate the adapter plug in our bathroom.
There is a small indicator light that has a continuous soft glow.
It casts just enough light to make it possible to see without turning on the light.
The adapter at my dressing table has the same little light.
I woke up to a rainy morning.
I did not need to turn on the light since it was almost daybreak.
The small light from the adapter cast just enough light for me to see my way clearly.
I went into our bathroom and saw something on the ceiling.
It was a shadow of praying hands.
It caught me by surprise.
I looked up and it made me smile.
I looked around trying to see what was casting that shadow.
I concluded that it was the light fixture over our mirror.
The little light shone in a such a way that the shadow resembled praying hands.
It was a lovely thing to see upon entering my bathroom to get ready for the day.
As I paused to see what was casting the shadow, I paused to ponder what it meant.
I usually have prayers on my lips and in my heart as soon as I awake.
Mostly, the prayers are for my children as they begin their day.
I pray for them to walk solidly with the Lord Jesus.
I pray for them to serve Him well that day.
I pray for my husband especially if he is traveling.
I pray for travel mercies and for his ability to see the Lord working in His life.
I pray for my own schedule that day.
I pray that the Lord would use me as He sees fit.
Praying hands on my ceiling was a welcome sight.
God will get our attention in creative ways.
God will focus our eyes on Him.
God will cause our hearts to pray.
To someone else, the shadow may have looked vastly different.
However, to me it was a reminder.
It was a call to pray.
I was extremely grateful.
I saw another strange sight when I was walking at an outlet center the day before.
I had to make a return; I simply went to one store and turned around to come home.
As I was leaving, I saw a circle on the pavement.
It was a metal cover on the sidewalk.
It was probably an access to underground wires or pipes.
However, to me it was something else.
It caught my eye right away.
To me, it was the face of a lion.
The two metal fasteners looked like the lion’s eyes.
The top part of the circle somehow looked like the lion’s mane.
A line of writing with the name of the company looked like the lion’s mouth.
I reached for my phone to take a picture, but hesitated.
Who takes pictures of a metal circle on the ground?
Oh, how I wish I did.
To anyone else, it would probably just look like a metal cover.
To me, it looked like Aslan from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
I saw the extraordinary in the ordinary.
God’s people are ordinary people who have been made extraordinary. (Oswald Chambers)
It is the extra added to the ordinary that sets us apart.
In Christ, each day is an adventure to see the extra in the ordinary all to His glory.
As I stood over the metal cover on the sidewalk, I quoted a line from C.S. Lewis in my head.
It was a line from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
Susan Pevensie was talking to Mr. Beaver.
She was nervous about meeting Aslan.
“Aslan is a lion- the Lion, the great Lion.” “Ooh” said Susan. “I’d thought he was a man. Is he-quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion”…”Safe?” said Mr. Beaver …”Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”
The metal cover looked like Aslan, the Lion, the great Lion.
Aslan who is a type of Christ, the Lion of Judah, the Lamb that was slain.
Jesus, who is good.
Jesus, who is King.
God makes Himself known in creative ways.
God makes Himself known in praying hands on the ceiling.
God makes himself known in metal covers on pavements that look like a Lion.
God makes Himself known.
God takes the ordinary and makes it extra-ordinary.
The extra is because He is in it.
He is everywhere.
He is all around us.
He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces, He was despised and we esteemed Him not. (Isaiah 53:2,3)
As a man, Jesus was very ordinary.
He was despised and rejected by men.
Nothing in His appearance attracted people to Him.
Nothing about Him made Him desirable.
After six days, Jesus took with Him Peter, James, and John the brother of James and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light. (Matthew 17:1,2)
As a man, Jesus was ordinary.
There was nothing special about His appearance.
However, the ordinary Jesus had something extra.
Jesus is fully God.
On the mountain, Peter, James, and John got to see the extra.
Jesus was transfigured before them.
The veil was lifted just a bit so that they could see His glory.
Peter, James, and John saw Jesus’ glory, the glory that had been there all along.
Jesus, the ordinary man was really the extra-ordinary God all along.
If we are in Christ, we have something extra.
We have the Holy Spirit dwelling in us.
The Holy Spirit turns the ordinary into extra-ordinary all to the glory of God.
God will get our attention in creative ways.
We will see Him in the ordinary.
Only the power of the Holy Spirit can turn our ordinary into something extraordinary.
Praying hands on the ceiling and a lion’s face in a metal pavement cover is just the beginning.
Look for the extraordinary among the ordinary.
Take a picture so you will remember.
Praise Him when you find it.
Rejoice that there is always something more than meets the eye.
I see God in every aspect of nature–sky, clouds, trees, flowers, snow, grass—-as well as animals and every precious human being. These things are “ordinary” to most people, but I see God’s handiwork and praise Him for giving us this “extra”-ordinary world, and more than that, His extraordinary Son Who came to save us!
Sue,
It is very difficult to see the extra in the ordinary without Him.
Gina