Some days are just plain ordinary.

There are days I don’t do anything exciting. There are days I don’t really do anything good for other people. There are days I can’t come up with anything great to blog. Days when my brain gets locked up and nothing profound comes out of my mouth or pen. There are days when I make it to the office, complete the tasks that need done and just go home.

Do you ever have days like that?

Last week I went to my blog reader program called feedly. A fairly popular blogger had made a mistake in their work and left the title as simply “New Post.” I laughed and thought to myself how sometimes I can’t think of a good blog title either. In fact, some days I can’t even think of what to write at all.

I read the blogs and posts of some people and I am amazed. Everyday they do something great. They are always acting with a sense of purpose and mission. Their actions include writing, serving others, visiting people while being the perfect spouse and involved parent. Honestly, most days I struggle to accomplish just one of those things.

Through the years I have had to train myself to think that it is okay to have an ordinary day. Living for God does not mean that everyday will be a spectacular experience. Living for God means that He is present with me in my normal everyday moments. Then He somehow takes my ordinary encounters and use them for His glory. He is with me as much today as every other day and that means everything will work out for the best. This is true even when I don’t see it or feel it.

One of my favorite shows on TV right now is “American Pickers.” I have actually enjoyed it for several years. There is a treasure aspect to what Mike and Frank do in each episode that I enjoy. They consistently find old items and buy them cheap in order to resell them.

Because I am busy on Wednesday nights when the show is on with youth group at the Church I set it up to DVR. That means that sometime on Thursday I finally sit down to watch it. Well, yesterday the guys from Antique Archaeology found some old metal dividers. The conversation quickly went to how these items could be “repurposed.” How could they take something that had one original design and use it for something completely different?

This idea was further driven home in my mind when I walked outside at my own home. Just outside my front door you will find an old ladder. It was made of wood and was too rotten to support someone’s weight while climbing. My wife and I had the idea to cut it up and make it a plant form for a one of our climbing roses to grow up around. It’s original design now modified and adjust to fit a new need.

This type of thinking has me believing that God wants to do some repurposing in our lives.

1. God wants to repurpose your hurts. I once heard Rick Warren say that your greatest source of struggle can also be your greatest ministry. Who better to minister to unwed teen mothers than a former unwed teen mother? Who better to minister to teens struggling with drugs than a former addict? Who better to share the grace of God than someone who has experienced it first hand?

2. God wants to repurpose your comfort. Second Corinthians chapter one develops this idea. In simple terms, when you were struggling God did something or used someone to help get you through it. Now you take the lessons you learned and help someone else with it. God’s original purpose was to help you and now you can repurpose that information to help others.

Our God loves to repurpose people’s hurts, struggles and the strength it took to get through those situations. I know there are other things he is waiting to repurpose, but I think that might be a good sermon series next year. For now, what would happen if you let God do some repurposing in your life? Maybe your rotten experience could be a place for roses to grow.

I love the title of Lemony Snicket’s book series “A Series of Unfortunate Events.” Honestly, I even liked the wacky movie that was made based off the books. Sometime in life a series of bad things can happen to us over which we have no control. Then again, sometimes a series of bad things can happen because we have failed to take control and lead things a different direction.

Last night I sat and watched the end of a basketball dream. A town very close to us had a very good men’s basketball team this year. They had not lost a game … until last night. The team was up 5 points with a little over a minute to play. I thought the game was over. Then the other team fouled on purpose to stop the clock and try and get the ball back. The player went to the line and missed the front end of a one and one free throw situation. The other team took the ball and scored. The team with the lead proceeded to turn the ball over on two possessions. One resulted in a score and the other did not. Now it was a 1 point game with 3 seconds left when there was one more foul committed.

The player walked to the line and also missed the front end of a one and one. The opposing team rebounds the ball and one player shot the ball a little past half court. It was a long shot with a bad angle. Amazingly the ball hit the backboard and bounced in with no time left on the clock. The shot counted for three points and the undefeated team suddenly was defeated.

I hope you are following my story so far. After the game there was much discussion of that final minute as you can imagine. People blamed the loss on a bad call from the refs (and there was). People credited the team with a miracle shot (and it was). But for me the game was lost because of a long series of bad actions and decisions. Timeouts were used unwisely, the team quit giving the ball to their star player, free throws were missed, turnovers were made and the defense was very poor. In my opinion there was not one bad play that lost the game and there was not one great play that won it. There was a series of things that resulted in the loss.

Thinking about the events of the night and replaying everything in my mind lead me to remember a simple truth: Nothing is lost or won in one play. This is true for sports, but it is also true in life.

No marriage falls apart in a day. No child gets in trouble because of one bad day of parenting. No person walks away from faith because of one event. Bad things are rarely the result of one bad action.

Marriages fall apart because a couple stops saying “I love you.” They stop serving each other. They stop holding hands and going out together. Children struggle because they have no grounding in the faith. Their spiritual development is shortchanged for other activities. They do not receive the attention and love they need so they go looking somewhere else. Faith crumbles when people skip Church, stop reading their Bible and and spend less time with Christians.

Each step of life takes us on a path toward success or failure. It may be the final step that is remembered but it was a long journey that takes us there. Where is your journey leading you?

Several years ago a group of Church members approached me about singing more of “their old favorite hymns” on Sunday morning. One of my responses was to ask them to list the songs they wanted to sing. Together this group came up with about 25 total songs they wanted to sing. To be honest, I was a little surprised at the length of their list. I had figured they would give me 100-150 songs. Nope, just 25. Which seems remarkable when you consider that most hymn books contain well over 400 songs. In fact, one of the older hymn books at our Church has 518 total hymns. This simple encounter lead me on an interesting journey of discovery.

Three of the most famous hymn writers in history are Fanny Crosby, Charles Wesley and Isaac Watts. A little research provided me with these facts.

Fanny Crosby wrote somewhere between 5,500-9,000 hymns in her life. It is really hard to know exactly how many she wrote since she published many of them under various pseudonyms. I place suggested she had songs published under as many as 200 names. Here is the interesting part to me, of her thousands of hymns there are about 25 that are really well-known today. Out of that list of 25 I could only recognize 11.

Charles Wesley was a prolific hymn writer. Most people estimate that he wrote over 6,000 hymns in his life. One writer stated that he actually wrote 8,989 hymns total. So you understand this clearly, that means he wrote over 10 lines of music everyday for 50 years. Yet, when I look at his life of most known hymns today there are only 20. Personally I only knew 5 of those, but then I am not a Methodist.

Isaac Watts’ number does not match these other two but he still wrote an impressive 750 hymns in his life. He list of best known hymns includes only 12 that are sung today. Of that 12, I only knew 4 of them.

This study in hymns and hymn writing taught me several lessons. Most people would note that musical interests change with every generation, as a result you would expect not to see many songs remain popular for a long time. I understand that to be true, but there is something else that caught my mind.

For every popular and enduring song there are hundreds of unknown songs. I hate to call them failures, because nothing done for God is a failure. But for every song that makes our list of “old favorite hymns” there are hundreds, if not thousands that do not make the list.

Let me translate this into everyday life. For every hundred sermons I preach only one may be remembered for more than a week. For every hundred lessons someone teaches in Sunday school maybe one will be remembered for more than a month. For every devotion you have with your family or children, none may be remembered at all. For everything you do there will be hundreds of seemingly wasted efforts.

The key to writing a great hymn is to write a lot of hymns. The key to doing anything well for God is to keep at it day after day, year after year and decade after decade.

Senior Citizens can be an enormous blessing to the local Church. Personally, I have been blessed to have worked with some very wonderful senior saints through the years. While working with them I have discovered there are two very different perspectives among the group.

One group of seniors I label as “experienced.” These people have seen their share of life. They have experienced pain, joy, loss, victory and a lifetime of stories. They then take these experiences and use them to have an impact on the present and even the future. Through the years they have gained perspective and knowledge that allows them to think clearly in almost any situation. These people are a great joy because they want to make an impact with their life in their present situation.

The other group of seniors I label as “nostalgic.” Nostalgia is defined as a longing or affection for the past. This group also has a lifetime of stories and experiences to share. But they share those stories with great longing for us to return. As if life would be much better if we just ignored the present and went back to another time and place in history. These people can be a great cause of frustration because they don’t care much for the present and really don’t seem to think anything about the future.

I appreciate both groups of people but as a Church leader I would rather have ten people willing to use their experience than an a hundred people filled with nostalgia. The Church is always moving into the future with a new group of people growing up who need to know the gospel. We need help right now to share the message of Jesus with people in a way they understand. Today might just be the day of salvation for someone.

The truth is this: We can never reclaim the past. We can only use it to teach us how to be a better Church today.

I once visited a local minister to talk about life as a pastor and the work going on in our churches. We were walking around the building and he proudly showed me his first ever Church newsletter. The Church had talked about having one for years and he had finally gotten his first one done.

I picked it up and quickly flipped through the pages. There were spacing and formatting errors that drive me crazy. There were a couple of typos and flaws. I politely pointed out a couple of the mistakes to him with the hope of helping him produce a better product.

He looked back at me and said something I will never forget. He said, “I know it’s not perfect, but you can’t improve on nothing.”

While his grammar might be confusing his point was clear to me. For years his Church had wanted a printed newsletter. He had taken the time to produce the best product he could. Finally they had a newsletter. There had once been nothing in existence and he finally had a product. There was a plan, a format and information ready to go. From now on he could focus his energy on making his newsletter better. The hardest part of his project was behind him – the work of getting started.

All of us in life and in our Churches have these grand dreams of all that we want to do for God. We have been putting it off for years because we were waiting for everything to be perfect. Honestly, it doesn’t have to be. Start somewhere and improve on that. After all, “You can’t improve on nothing.”

It is very late at night after my oldest son’s final basketball game. Actually it is early in the morning the next day and I still can’t sleep. My emotions are still running wild and my mind will not stop. I have been thinking about the first time my boy played organized basketball in 4th grade. I have watched him grow from an awkward little boy into a starter on his high school team. And tonight it all came to an end. Oh, I am sure he will play basketball again. He may play hundreds of games more in his life, but I will no longer be in the stands to cheer him on as my high school son. Tonight was a transition for both him and me and I have a few thoughts that I want to share.

1. Sports Provided Us With Many Great Memories Together. I have been with him as a parent and as a coach through everything. We were together for all the great moves, incredible shots and difficult losses. Tonight we spent just a couple of minutes sharing memories and stories and my heart was full as I thought of all of our times together. Sports may be a lot of things, but it is a great way to spend time together as father and son.

2. Sports Was a Family Affair. Through the years we have approached sports as a family. We spent time together as a family at practices, before games and after games. I am proud that my younger children have always had a great role model to look up to in their older brother.

3. Sports Helped Develop My Son’s Character. I firmly believe that faith and family are the greatest factors in a person’s development, but sports can help. My son has been shaped by learning to handle disappointment, criticism and one coach who was mean. He made friendships with players, celebrated the success of others and always been a good sport. I am not really sure if it developed his character as much as it gave him a chance to use all he was learning at Church and home.

I know tonight was just another game on the grand scale of things. It was just a sport with no real significance in the state of the world. But my world changed if only just a little. So as #42 walked off the court one final time I gave him a hug and said, “I love you son and I am very proud of you.”

I am thankful for all God has given my family through sports. I pray He will bless your family through whatever adventure you take with your children as He has blessed me.

The Bible gives us a list of the 12 Disciples without much commentary. Names are listed as if we knew something about each one. In reality we only know a little bit about most of them and a couple we know almost nothing. One such disciple is known as Simon the Zealot.

The attachment of the name Zealot is a very specific historical reference. The Zealots were a group of fanatical Jewish Nationalists who were filled with hatred for the Romans. It was this hate for Rome that destroyed the city of Jerusalem. One historian says the Zealots were reckless persons, zealous in good practices but also in the worst kind of actions.

With that one paragraph I have just described everything we know about Simon the Zealot. There are no Bible stories about him. In fact there is no real extra-Biblical material about him. With most of the disciples we have some great story of faith and martyrdom associated with their death. Tradition says he died as a martyr and nothing more.

He lived as a Zealot. Then he followed Jesus. He eventually died for his faith in Jesus. That’s it.

There was another Simon that Jesus called to follow him. Jesus would change his name to Peter and he would become a spokesman for the disciples. He would make a great confession. He would be one of Jesus three closest disciples. He would deny knowing Jesus and be reinstated. He would preach on Pentecost. He would be pillar in the church and a great historical figure.

Two Simons. One well know and the other barely known. One a leader and the other a question mark.

I wonder, “Does that make Simon the Zealot insignificant?” I mean, “Did Jesus really need him as one of the twelve?”

Maybe the bigger question is this, “Does a life become more significant in God’s eyes by being famous?” “Does being known equal being significant?”

Unfortunately we live in a world with celebrity Christians. Religious leaders, government officials, entertainers and sports figures who claim to follow Jesus are headline news. In a quest to keep up with the crowd we boast of our service or charity on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram looking for some kind of acknowledgement. If people know what we are doing then we are somehow more significant to the kingdom of God.

I am convinced that the kingdom of God needs more people willing to be Simon the Zealot than Simon Peter. We need more people willing to serve far from the headlines and make a difference known only to God.

Having Jesus know our name makes us significant and nothing else.

My wife loves to watch the Food Network. Since I love my wife I get to watch it too. After having seen several hours of cooking shows I am convinced that they are selling lies. Well, maybe not lies but rather only half of the truth.

Almost all cooking shows lead you to believe that you can become a great chef in half an hour. In reality the hard work of great food is a much longer process. For example, my wife once saw a recipe while we lived in Alaska that required vanilla beans. We searched every local market and found that they do not even sell them where we live. When we finally did find them at a store a long distance away we found the price to be outrageous. Great food requires you to have a good source of food. That alone can take hours of shopping and create a large expense.

The second problem that I see on TV is that the lady on the show walks to the refrigerator where everything is clean, cut, measured and ready to cook. Anyone who has worked in the kitchen knows that it takes far more time to do food prep than to actually cook. For example, I love to fry fresh fish that I catch. I know it will take me an hour of prep time to cook a single plate of fish.

Finally comes the clean up. Has anyone ever seen a TV cook actually scrub and wash dishes? It will sometimes take us longer to clean up after a meal than it did to cook and eat it.

For anyone who lives in the real world the cooking shows on TV are less than half truth.

My fear is that the Church can come off the same way. We have our hour of worship on Sunday. In that time the preacher gives us a 30 minute sermon and makes the Christian life sound so easy. We meet people who seem to have it altogether and they make everything look so easy. Honestly, the reality is far from what we see on Sunday morning.

To have a living, growing and fruitful spiritual life you are required to spend hours studying, reading, praying, meditating and fellowshipping. The hard work behind the scenes is what will make everything work. The daily grind of the spiritual disciplines are the key to a great life. The weekly commitment to worship and instruction are the vital prep work to a Christian life. The clean up of pouring out our heart in forgiveness and love after making mistakes is what makes us into better people.

A wonderful life of faith may look easy on Sunday but it is really the result of a lot of hard work that goes on behind the scenes.

Each day I might want to take a shortcut and buy a prepackaged meal, but it will just not taste the same as a quality made product. Something that is easy to make and something that are high quality are rarely synonymous.

It was 9 years ago that I started having severe pain behind my eyes. It would gradually get worse as the day went along. After talking with a doctor I went to an optometrist who ran several tests on my eyes. He determined that my vision was impaired and my eyes were staining to see the words as I read. Since I read a lot of material through the day my problem was getting worse the more I read. His simple solution was glasses.

Now he warned me that my eyes had probably been getting worse for years and when I started wearing glasses my eyes would finally relax. The end result is that my prescription would increase dramatically over the next couple years. He was right my eyes quickly became worse and it didn’t take 5 years before I was in bifocals.

For the last several years I have been able to occasionally remove my glasses and still read items if I varied the distance from my face. Well, last night I had taken my glasses off for bed and one of my boys needed some medicine. I went to the cabinet and took out the bottle. To my surprise every word was blurry and no matter how I adjusted the bottle it wouldn’t come clear. Finally in frustration I went to get my glasses just to make sure I was reading the pill bottle right.

After this experience I flopped down in bed realizing that my vision was gone. I could no longer see well enough to do even minor activities without my glasses. What once was in sharp focus was now lost into a lifetime of blurry.

This led me to thinking about the Apostle Paul. In the story of his conversion from Judaism to Christianity he sees the Lord on the road to Damascus. He speaks with the Lord and then something interesting happens. He had something form over his eyes like scales and he was blind for three days (Acts 9:9).

I really wonder why God made him blind. Couldn’t he just have seen a vision and then went on with his life? Why make Paul blind?

Here is my conviction: God wanted to teach Paul to depend on something other than himself.

For three days he sat in darkness knowing that he would need the help of someone to lead him out of this situation. Finally Ananias comes to him and gives him instructions on the next step of his journey of faith. And at that moment he is ready to listen. Paul knew he needed guidance in his life, because he was blind.

I think that sometimes God steps into the mess we have made of our lives and shows us a way out. Also, sometimes He comes in and makes a mess of our lives so that we learn to depend on Him. To say it another way, “Sometimes he makes the blind to see and sometimes he makes people who see become blind.”

Through the years of my decreasing sight I have learned total reliance on my glasses. If my glasses are missing I need someone to help me read anything. I have learned dependence because of my weakness.

What if God were trying to do the same thing to you? What if He was frustrating your plans so that you would learn to depend on him? What if your biggest struggle was the place God was trying to do his biggest work?