God loves the ‘ordinary’
Have you been feeling unloved, ‘flat’ or perhaps even just a bit plain and ordinary? With everything going on in the world, it can be easy to feel unimportant over the past few months. You may even think, well, “maybe the more important people aren’t stuck at home in lockdown like me, they still get to work” or “maybe I’m living a more ordinary life than the family that lives next door, the things I do seem so plain”. In times like these, it can be easy to get discouraged.
Did you know that even when we feel at our worst, that God (or Jesus) doesn’t view us like that? The best thing about Jesus (and he was more popular than any rock star, celebrity or Instagram influencer) was that he always cared about the ‘ordinary’ person. He didn’t go off worldly popularity, hierarchies or political standing. In fact, he often mixed with those that may have deemed themselves as plain, ordinary or even unlovable. There are examples of this all through the Bible.
When it came to revealing to someone that he was the messiah, Jesus didn’t choose to tell a high priest or a dinner table full of the rich, he instead told a woman that he met at the well. This woman was classed as living “unacceptably or provocatively” for that time. To others and herself, the woman at the well was seen as unlovable and unimportant. Many of those that were seen as more important, wanted to know eagerly if Jesus was the chosen one but just as we saw here, he doesn’t go by who we deem as important, who some see as living correctly or incorrectly. When it came to sharing something so special, he chose to first go to the woman that had been shunned by everyone else and share it with her, regardless of worthiness or how others viewed her (John 4:1-26).
During lockdown there was plenty of time to think and sometimes even draw comparisons about ourselves and others. Maybe you haven’t had the same education as those that were with you in your school year or maybe you aren’t too proud of your job. It can be easy to determine our self-worth based on circumstances like these. However, in the Bible, Jesus didn’t share his intimate thoughts and the secrets of the kingdom of God with the most educated and wealthy. He instead shared them with the fisherman. Fishermen were uneducated and in those times probably carried a pungent odour of fish. God doesn’t see our worth based on our education or the balance in our bank accounts. Where we see ‘ordinary’, he does not.
Perhaps you’ve made decisions in your life that you think others or God won’t forgive you for or maybe you even feel a little ashamed? Well, in the Bible, Jesus didn’t chose to shame, in Luke 1:119 there was a little guy called Zac, who was a tax collector. Now Zac actually stole from everyone but Jesus didn’t condemn him, instead he went to his house and had dinner with him and because of this, Zac felt convicted of his stealing and gave the money back to everyone. Jesus even told a story of an arrogant, selfish man (Luke 15: 11-31) that had taken all of his father’s money and wasted it on the ‘high life’. Perhaps that is something we wouldn’t think that we could be forgiven for but when that man asked for forgiveness, he wasn’t shamed, he was forgiven and accepted home.
So, whether you feel plain and unlovable like the woman at the well, or you feel uneducated like the fisherman, or perhaps you have done things that have been selfish or dishonest like Zac or that man’s son. God still loves you and there is no sin too big he can’t forgive. You are loved! Even if you think you are ordinary, you are extraordinary in God’s eyes!