Thursday Read: Ordinary Faithfulness in Extraordinary Times

Zechariah and Elizabeth were "righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord's commands and decrees blamelessly" (Luke 1:6). They weren't famous prophets or influential leaders. They were an elderly, childless couple faithfully serving God in obscurity while Israel waited for the Messiah they'd been promised for centuries. They had no idea their ordinary faithfulness was about to intersect with God's extraordinary plan.

When Gabriel appeared to announce Elizabeth's pregnancy, Zechariah was simply doing his job - serving as priest in the temple, burning incense during his division's appointed time. This was routine duty, predictable rotation, nothing special. Yet in that moment of ordinary service, God inserted extraordinary intervention. John the Baptist's conception happened while his father was faithfully performing regular religious duties.

This pattern repeats throughout Scripture. David was tending sheep when Samuel came to anoint him king. Moses was watching Jethro's flock when he encountered the burning bush. The disciples were fishing when Jesus called them. Mary was living an ordinary life in Nazareth when Gabriel appeared. God's extraordinary interventions consistently interrupt ordinary faithfulness, not dramatic spiritual experiences.

We've created a Christian culture that overvalues the dramatic and undervalues the daily. We celebrate conversion stories, miraculous healings, and radical life changes while barely noticing the person who faithfully serves in children's ministry for thirty years. We write books about missionaries who plant churches in unreached people groups but ignore the single mom who works two jobs and still brings her kids to church every Sunday. We platform the spectacular and overlook the steady.

But most of life - even devoted Christian life - is ordinary. It's showing up to work when you don't feel like it. It's having the same argument with your spouse and choosing kindness anyway. It's reading your Bible on Tuesday morning when nothing dramatic happens. It's making dinner, doing laundry, paying bills, having conversations, fulfilling responsibilities. Ordinary faithfulness in the mundane moments that don't make Instagram stories or sermon illustrations.

Paul told the Colossians: "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters" (Colossians 3:23). Whatever you do - not just "spectacular spiritual things" but whatever. Changing diapers, entering data, driving trucks, teaching algebra, answering phones. All of it can be sacred when done for the Lord. All of it matters