Ordinary Time

There is nothing exciting about ordinary. We are trained to yearn and long for extraordinary. We want grand and wonderful times, not ordinary times. But this Sunday we begin the long season of ordinary time. It reminds me of my childhood complaint, and the same complaint I hear from my children, “I’m bored.”  

While ordinary lacks the shiny newness of extraordinary, it is the place where deep change most often occurs. When I think back to my childhood, I was formed more by our normal dinner table conversations than by dinners out at famous restaurants. I was formed more by slow days at home with family than by going to Cedar Point and riding roller coasters. Ordinary time is the time of deep formative change. It has a stability to it that allows us to reflect on who we are and who we are becoming. It has the freedom to let us lean in new directions and try on small changes.  

As we enter this ordinary season, may we be intentional in discerning what the Holy Spirit might be calling out of us. 

And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight,  so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ,  filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God. -Philippians 1:9-11