Ecclesiastes 3:12-13: Ordinary, But Not Typical

I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live--that each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God. - Ecclesiastes 3:12-13

Be careful what you exalt. Believers showcase missionaries and pastors and full-time ministry workers as examples for others to imitate. I have known many truly godly men and women in these professions, whose humility and obedience to the call of God on their lives has challenged my faith. I have also known many truly godly men and women who have slugged it out through the day-to-day struggle of living the ordinary life of a Christ follower at work, church, home and neighborhood, and they stretch me.

So I cringe when the "best" growth path offered for Christian life is full-time ministry and anything else is somehow less. When has the church highlighted (apart from stay-at-home motherhood) the well-lived, ordinary life of the the insurance broker, the computer programmer, the secretary and the sanitation engineer as the exemplary Christian life-on par with pastor-ing or missionary-ing?

I am convinced that I am called to the ordinary life, but not the typical life. I'm married, own a house, have three kids, go to work each day and own a house. Not everyone's life, but not unusual. I am called to love my wife well, raise my kids to meet God and love others, excel at the work I'm given, enjoy the provision of God and live generously towards everyone God brings into my path. This isn't plan B for my life-what someone with a seminary degree does when they don't happen to make it into full-time ministry. I am convinced that this is God's plan A for me-no less blessed.

Listen to Paul's words the members of the church in Thessaloniki:

Yet we urge you, brothers and sisters, to do so more and more, and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody. - 1 Thessalonians 4:10b-12

No call here for the revolutionary life. Rather the ordinary quiet life-industrious, respectable, excellent. Not typical. Not mediocre. Not the anxious and anger lives of their neighbors, but rather full of love and hopeful.

So what does it look like when the ordinary people show up? The same stuff happens, the same laughter erupts and tears flow, but the grace of God accompanies the people of God into each and changes its significance and thereby glorifies God.