07202019 God of the Commonplace

Dear Missionary Lady,

Greetings! Did you see God work this week? Did you see His intervention? Did you experience answered prayer?

I was thinking this week about answered prayer. We probably all have stories about dramatic answers to prayer, times when God answered in really dramatic and obvious ways. His answers were so incredible that all we could do was to stand back with our mouths gaping open, and say "Wow, look what God did!"

We like it when God answers in such a way. It gives us opportunity to reflect honor on His amazing-ness. It builds our faith. It encourages others. It creates excitement.

But God doesn't always answer in dramatic, jaw-dropping fashion. When He doesn't, it is never because He can't. Instead, there are divinely-known reasons for why He has chosen not to. That doesn't mean God can't answer prayer in much more mundane, routine, commonplace ways. That would still be an answer.

God is the God of the dramatic and amazing, but He is also the God of the routine and the commonplace. Answered prayer is answered prayer, no matter how it happens. Provision is provision, regardless of the method.

I was trying to think of some examples in which God provided or answered prayer in what we would consider a nondescript, run-of-the-mill, absolutely mundane kind of way. And the examples are hard to think of, because they don't stand out, but here are some. Abraham wandered and lived in a tent and never had a permanent dwelling. God met the needs of Gideon's family by having Gideon hide in a winepress to process his limited resources. Ruth provided for herself and Naomi by scraping together the remnants left in the fields, following the procedure reserved for poor people and widows. When David killed Goliath, he used a random stone and the same familiar slingshot he used as a shepherd. David and his army lived in caves. John the Baptist survived by wearing animal skins and by eating locusts and wild honey.

Did God provide for these people? Yes, He did. Those commonplace answers sometimes turned into something dramatic, but the first impression (and sometimes the only impression) was routine, mundane, and sometimes even unpleasant.

How does that translate for us? God might meet our grocery needs by allowing us to live on rice and beans. He might provide a home or a church building through the scraping together of materials and backbreaking, hard work. He might get our children through college by having them work two jobs and stretch the process out into six years. He might provide our transportation needs with an old clunker or the public bus. He might bring new converts through repeated, seemingly non-impacting conversations that last for years before the breakthrough.

We're tempted not even to consider these as answers to prayer, but just as routine life. Nevertheless, they are God's answers and provision just as much as the miraculous bags of groceries left on the porch, the unexpected gift from a wealthy businessman, the anonymous donations to the school bill, a gifted car of our dreams, or a soul ripe for harvest who is dramatically rescued from imminent suicide.

We want to open our mouths and see God fill them dramatically like water from a fire hose, and sometimes He does. "They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house; and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures" (Psalm 36:8). Other times we must be content to take His quiet daily provision and His continual grace for one dreary step at a time. "And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness" (II Corinthians 12:9).

It's not easy to live in the commonplace, barely scraping by, longing for a breakthrough. It can be discouraging to wait and wait for what it seems like we need. It can be disheartening to see other ministries flourish dramatically while our own plods along. We can even become jealous or disenchanted when we hear of amazing answers that someone else has received, while we linger in survival mode. But take heart! God is working in your life and ministry also. He promises never to leave you nor forsake you. He promises to be with you. His character demands that He be faithful. He will meet your needs. God's blessing is just as real when He helps us to faithfully live through extended adversity as it is when He gives those special, breakthrough moments.

As you go through this next week, maybe filled with drab challenges, be sure to look for God's hand in the midst of the commonplace. It will surely be there! So just keep going one day at a time, one task at a time. What you do today matters for eternity, but we must trust God to reveal that value and impact in His time even if we can't see any tangible result. He will do it. Take care, my friends, and endure.

Love in Christ,
Peggy Holt
member at Open Door Baptist Church in Lebanon, PA
www.pressingontohigherground.blogspot.com