Finding God in the Ordinary

A related issue, renewal tends to relegate spirituality to the mountain-top experience, and neglects the spirituality of the ordinary. Yet 99% of our lives as believers are lived in the everday, mundane work-a-day world in the valley. CS Lewis wrote that, "There is no good trying to be more spiritual than God. God never meant man to be a purely spiritual creature. That is why he uses material things like bread and wine to get the new life into us. We may think this rather crude and unspiritual. God does not: He invented eating. He likes matter. He invented it.” In fact, ministry and Christian growth are more about ordinary everyday life than about the mountaintop experiences. ~Len Hjalmarson, Renewal: the Hype, the Hope and the Reality

We often notice God and experience Him when something extra-ordinary occurs; a divine healing or a miracle; when we are at a camp or retreat, at revival meetings and Christian conferences. When we went for the mission trip to Sarawak recently, many of us saw how God worked in us and in the lives of the Iban people. However, do we notice Him and experience Him in the mundane and in the ordinary? Do we see God each time a mother carries her baby in her arms? Do we remember God each time we see the sun rising above the hills? Do we notice God in the people we meet at the office everyday? Is our spirituality limited to mountain-top experiences at camps, retreats, conferences and mission trips? Do we exalt the more miraculous spiritual gifts like speaking in tongues, prophecy, and healing more than the gifts that are less visible such as knowledge, administration and helps? We need to learn to notice God in the mundane, everyday experiences of life. He is indeed the God of the extraordinary, but He is the God of the ordinary as well.