The Bible teaches us to do whatever we do “for the glory of God” and “in the name of the Lord Jesus” (1 Corinthians 10:31; Colossians 3:17). Many today mistakenly believe that only spectacular things can be done for the glory of God and for the sake of Christ. Ordinary things, while an inevitable part of our ordinary lives, have no spiritually intrinsic value.

It’s no wonder that we think this way in today’s glitz and glitter world. Significance is only ascribed to things seen as extraordinary by today’s star-struck masses. Thus, many a saint has gotten stardust in their eyes. As a result, they can only see the kingdom of God in today’s mega-churches. While they put televangelists and best-selling authors on a pedestal, they reduce Christianity’s rank and file to filling mega-church pews, funding television ministries and buying books at Barnes & Noble.

According to the Apostle Paul, God’s preferred way of doing things is to use the ordinary lives of ordinary people in extraordinary ways (1 Corinthians 1:26-31). By doing so He assures Himself of getting the glory and excludes the possibility of us getting the credit. Think about it; when God uses the eloquence of an extraordinary preacher in a pulpit, people tend to be impressed with the preacher and attribute what has occurred to his exceptional oratory abilities, but when God uses the ordinary guy or gal on the back pew, people tend to be impressed with God and attribute what has occurred to His use of such ordinary people in so extraordinary a way!

In the Christian classic, The Practice of His Presence, Brother Lawrence points out that “it is not necessary to have great things to do” for God. He opines: “I turn my little omelette in the pan for the love of God; when it is finished, if I have nothing to do, I prostrate myself on the ground and adore God, Who gave me the grace to make it, after which I arise, more content than a king. When I cannot do anything else, it is enough for me to have lifted a straw from the earth for the love of God.”

According to Lawrence, to be one of God’s contented straw-lifters requires us “to do everything for the love of God, to make use of all the labors of [our] state in life to show Him that love, and to maintain His presence within us by this [continual] communion of our hearts with His.” It is this practice of God’s presence in the performance of ordinary things that makes possible our continuous communion with God and His extraordinary use of us for the glory of His name.