It’s okay to be ordinary, just don’t settle for mediocre …

“It’s A Wonderful Life” is one of the most famous movies ever produced for television.

One reason for its enduring success is because so many of us can relate to the main character, George Bailey, who dreams great dreams but turns out to live just an ordinary life … only to discover that “ordinary” can, in many ways, be quite an extraordinary blessing.

Talking to the girl who has captivated him, he babbles on about his great dreams ..

Mary, I know what I’m going to do tomorrow and the next day and the next year and the year after that. I’m going to leave this little town far behind, and I’m going to see the world. Italy, Greece, the Parthenon, the Colosseum. Then I’m coming back here, and I’ll go to college and see what they know, and then I’m going to build things. I’m going to build air fields. I’m going to build skyscrapers a hundred stories high. I’m going to build bridges a mile long…

Many preachers and positive-thinking gurus sound a lot like the ramblings of George Bailey, who are constantly hailing the virtues of chasing “greatness.” In spite of the obscene number of times you may hear preachers talk about pursuing “greatness,” just remember there’s NOTHING wrong with being ordinary!

Just one thing: don’t settle for mediocre.

In the minds of so many of those preachers and gurus, “ordinary” equals “mediocre.” No, ordinary equals the vast majority of human beings; mediocrity equals choosing to do less than your best, to expend the least amount of energy, to put forth little effort, it’s settling for just “being” without much trying.

An ordinary life, as the fictional character of George Bailey was created to attest to, can bring great love, great fulfillment, great purpose, and great joy to our lives, but a mediocre life will lack such things because it lives life half-heartedly.

Living faithfully and obediently to God morphs the experiences of the ordinary person into extraordinary outcomes that glorify God, so don’t ever let it bother you the next time the preacher blathers on about “greatness.” God alone is great, and He chooses to use the ordinary to do the extraordinary!

Scotty