The Ordinary Means of Grace

I have wasted a lot of energy looking for a spiritual breakthrough. A feeling that would finally prove this was working. A book, a conference, a new routine.

Acts 2 is almost dull after the fire and the languages. They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, the fellowship, the breaking of bread, and the prayers. That's what they did with the Holy Spirit.

I still want the Christian life to feel like a mission with a clean objective. The Army trained that into me. Parenting doesn't feel like that. Neither does sitting still for a sermon. A lot of it is just showing up again.

Where God said He would be

Word, baptism, the Table, and prayer. I used to hear "ordinary" as an insult. I don't anymore. It means God appointed them. You don't have to hunt Him. He told you where He intends to feed you.

A Bible opened and explained. A believer going down into the water. Bread and the cup in a hand that didn't earn them. Prayers said by people who don't know how to pray as they ought. It looks small. He likes small more than I do.

He split seas and raised the dead. He can still do whatever He wants. He also tied Himself to things a tired man can actually show up for, and I think that's mercy. If His presence were a prize for the impressive, I would miss it every week.

I don't sprinkle. I don't baptize babies. When I say baptism I mean a believer buried with Christ in the water and raised up again. That's a different piece. Here I only need to say this: God did not hide Himself in a secret. He put His gifts in the church.

The hunger for the spectacular

I know why people chase the next thing. Repetition feels like failure when you were taught that growth is a graph that only goes up. But I forget the gospel on a short loop. So God says it again. Same Table. Same prayers. Then the same old Book the next morning.

If your faith feels thin, I doubt you need a secret. You probably need to go to church. Open the Bible when you don't feel like it. Come to the Table. Pray with actual people, not only in your head. Stay long enough that the ordinary stops feeling like a consolation prize.

At home

This holds in the house too. We don't need a family liturgy so complicated it dies by Wednesday. We need Scripture in the kids' ears, prayer at the table, parents who apologize out loud, and a Sunday that belongs to the Lord.

I've tried to dress all of that up. It didn't make us holier. It made us tired. God still uses the plain stuff.