Out of the Ordinary

Daily routines are good. I acknowledge this somewhere inside of me. Perhaps it is from my military training. No, maybe from my parents? Perhaps it is from the years of school...naw! It must be innate. Why else would I recognize the benefit and even cherish my rock solid unshakable daily routine? For example,(you have liberty to make your own life application here) each week day I start by waking, showering, dressing, fixing a (point friendly) lunch, packing the car with me, my lunch and my wife and off to work we go to be stopped just a few hundred feet from my driveway by the daily school bus! BTW, the bus driver must be on the same internal clock as me as evidenced by the fact that no matter the variances in the hour of my departure, which in truth can only be a few minutes + or - any morning given to how ridged I am in my routine, she picks up the same kids who stand waiting at the same spot (most days) on the sidewalk of the same side of the street to file into the bus in the same order and take the same seat as they are off to school where they continue a daily routine of classes….wow! Bus moving on, I continue my daily 22 minute drive (most days) to my office where I continue the ordinary routines of my work day! Double wow!!

If you have not already pick up on the interchangeableness of “routine” and “habit” it is certainly not from the lack of a good effort on my part.

I say (at least somewhere inside of me) “Enough already!” Give me the life of a non-conformist!”
Laughable, to say the least, that this comes from my mouth! Those of you who know me well enough are shaking heads and clucking tongues.

I, as do you most likely, love…no demand… a daily dose of routine! Structured scheduled fixes of regularity that comes from staying in the safe zone of habits!
In our routines and our habits we do not have to think or process we just…function! And thanks to those habitual routines, pretty darn well too!
So, is our predictability our fortune? The mundane our salvation? What would happen if for one day you and I broke out of the ordinary of our lives, crossing over the threshold of our fear, stepping into the realm of faith? Most of us live more near that threshold than we would care to admit - hearing the call to step over our fear and out of the ordinary.

You don’t think so? Allow me to name a few people who had the routine of their day interrupted and out of that interruption chose to cross over their fear and live life out of the ordinary: There was Mary, the mother of Jesus. There was Joseph, Mary’s husband. There was Jesus. There was John, Peter and the other disciples called by Christ Jesus. There was Paul (who was Saul). There was Luke. There was Timothy. There was Mary Magdalene. There was Ananias of Acts 9 who by the internal prompting of the Holy Spirit went to pray for Saul, who up until a few days prior had persecuted even ordered the execution of people just like Ananias. These are only to name a few. There are many others I could name but only one stands out for this day!


So much so that I must name and salute that person … YOU!