Is it okay to be ordinary?

They say in your 20s you start to realise all the things you could do with your life and everything that you could be, but then in your 30s you start to realise all the things that you’ll never be. Seems like a sad thought doesn’t it?

Well I turned 27 this month, and I wonder if that’s why I’ve started thinking about ordinariness. If I never achieve any level of fame or renown as an international speaker/Christian author/rock star or anything else for that matter, will I feel like I’ve failed? Like I squandered my potential and never really achieved anything?

Of course ‘potential’ is a biblical concept. God has given you gifts and talents, it says, make the most of them.

But potential for what? Culturally it’s very difficult for us to get away from the idea that our potential to succeed is measured in pound signs and celebrity. Who does the media see as successful? People who have ‘done well for themselves’. Tidy earners and popular stars. Slender, well-dressed people. I’m sure in times gone by, if you’d grafted hard and maybe raised a family, you’d lived a good life. But now it's about getting wealthy, having career success and being well thought of – are these the important achievements in life?

Is that the potential God sees in us? I’m fairly sure that in other cultures people’s idea of what constitutes success are quite different. I picture old, grey-haired tribal leaders in distant hot places, who are respected elders, and yet their life must surely have consisted mostly of looking after their family, and working for a harvest.

Perhaps the main difference between their culture and ours is that we have become fiercely individualistic in the West, when elsewhere (and certainly more biblically), people view their lives in terms of community.

There is no ‘If I don’t make my mark, I won’t have achieved anything’. Instead it’s ‘If I play my part, we will achieve something together’. Maybe in tribal places when they all work together they achieve good crops to sustain themselves. In the Western church when we all pull together our achievement is seeing God’s Kingdom coming to Earth. Little by little, and whatever our contribution might be, that is what is important to work towards in this life.

In that respect, a life can seem perfectly ordinary, not marked by fame or wealth or recognition, but in fact be quietly contributing to the most extraordinary and important mission there is. What are you hoping to have achieved when you reach your latter days?

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