Life is full of seasons other than spring, summer, fall and winter. Childhood, adolescence, and adulthood; single, dating, engaged and married. We have healthy and unhealthy seasons, ones of flourishing and of pruning, and every high and low in between. I’ve been one to say I’m in a season of waiting just as often as I say I’m in a season of going. Too often, we lose sight of the present season for looking too much on the seasons past or future. Let’s take some time this week to be honest about our seasons – mentally, spiritually, physically and emotionally – and learn to savor and soak in where we are now.

To Ordinary & Beyond

For I have learned in whatever situation I am in to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.

Philippians 4:11-12

I spent the year after my college graduation traveling the world in the name of Jesus. It was an incredible season of life: ever-changing, ever-adventurous, ever-growing. And then one day, it was over. In the snap of my fingers I went from a time where I could stand in two countries at once to living in my parents’ house again, and I didn’t know what to do with it. In my journals, I referred to my consistently bored and nostalgic demeanor as my “Post-Incredible-Season-Disorder.”

At times in our lives we get to walk with God in something new – new places, new relationships, new ministry or new job opportunities – and every day seems like another new adventure. Those are truly incredible seasons, seasons that we should embrace and celebrate. But we also have to acknowledge and accept that, like all seasons, it ends and leads to another.

I had been so immersed in “extraordinary” (though, most of those extraordinary days were steeped in ordinary things) that “ordinary” was boring. A “normal” schedule in a “normal” home made me roll my eyes. I fell into a lie that this new ordinary life of waking up, going to work and coming home for dinner wasn’t enough.

The truth is, our faith is born in the ordinary. I mean, literally, Jesus was born to an ordinary girl in an ordinary town in an ordinary stable. Our faith grows in “ordinary” Bible reading and in ordinary fellowship with ordinary believers.

Living an extraordinary life isn’t rooted in the places we go, the people we know, or how adrenaline-inducing our daily lives may be. Living an extraordinary life is rooted in the extraordinary One who is leading the way.

Life with Jesus makes an ordinary 9-5 work day extraordinary. It gives every carpool line significance and adds meaning in the most mundane tasks of doing the dishes, cleaning out the car, or making the bed.

A little perspective can go a long way, and when we choose to see our season of life with our eyes on the One who walks with us, He makes all things extraordinary.

Chelsey