I am afraid.

There, I said it, and now it’s out there. But I need to clarify the statement. My biggest fear in life is not of sickness, financial hardship, public speaking, heights, or even spiders. My biggest fear is being ordinary. I am deathly afraid of being just another guy who blended into the crowd – someone who never did anything important or significant with his life. I am terrified of “eeking” my way through life, so caught up in the rut of the mundane that I pass from this earth as just another inconsequential guy who had a job, raised some kids, and tried to get enough fiber in his diet.

Oh, I don’t always feel this way. Every once in a while something exciting rolls into the schedule. But most days are pretty much the same. It’s on those days, as I stare at the computer screen or pay the bills, as I have the same wrestling match with my kids or eat the same dinner with my wife – those are the days when I find myself wondering if I’m really doing anything that matters. If I’m really doing anything important at all.

And where does God fit into this equation? During those days, the days of the rut and the treadmill, I find myself wondering if He does at all. Surely this couldn’t be what God wants for me, this God who says that He put on flesh to come and give regular folks like me not only life, but life in abundance (John 10:10). So where is it? In my google calendar? In my morning commute? In the pancakes I flip every Saturday morning?

I want to propose an idea to you. It’s one that’s so very simple that we can often miss it. It’s an idea that can, I believe, dramatically change the way we view life as a whole:

What if there is no such thing as ordinary?

What if we are looking so hard for these grandiose experiences of significance that we are missing the opportunities for significance right in front of us? What if there is no such thing as ordinary when you follow an extraordinary God?

If that’s true, then changing your life isn’t so much a matter of doing something different; it’s a matter of doing the everyday stuff of life with a dramatically different perspective. With that in mind, here are five mundane tasks that, when viewed with the right perspective can literally change your life:

Create a budget.
Boring, right? Absolutely. But your commitment to do something like develop a budget is about more than making good financial choices. Jesus talked about money as much as most anything else, and the reason why He did isn’t because God needs it. It’s because the way we deal with money reveals very clearly what we love and what we believe.

If you want to know what has the utmost place in your affections, just follow the money trail. And if you want to know whether or not you really believe in a God who will meet your needs, just take a look at your spending habits. When we choose to do something like create a budget, we are bringing intentionality to a key area of our lives which is a barometer of our walk with God.

Keep going to church.
Most of us treat churches like we do restaurants. We walk in, expect good service, and will only go back if we find things to taste good. That’s why we drift from place to place even in the same town – it’s because one worship style, preacher, or programming no longer has any appeal for us. But when we choose to stay – to commit – to hold fast, even if our church isn’t exactly like we want it to be, then we are showing that we recognize that we are doing more than standing around singing some songs on Sunday morning.

We are showing that we believe the church to be the manifestation of the wisdom of God (Eph. 3:10); that each local expression of the body of Christ is doing something cosmically significant when they meet together.

Look at your spouse.
Marriage is one of those areas of our lives that can quickly drift into the scope of the mundane. It’s the same person. Same dinner. Same conversation. Same routine. But we need more than just an occasional date night or “5 steps to spice things up.” We need to recover a sense of the great importance of marriage in the economy of God.

Paul reminds us in Ephesians 5:29-30 that marriage isn’t ultimately about companionship, sex, or having a double income. It’s about the gospel. The Christian marriage is meant to be a walking, talking, living, breathing illustration of the relationship between Christ and the church.

So look at your husband. Look at your wife. And see something more.

Change a diaper.
Yes, change a diaper. It doesn’t get much more boring and routine than that, does it? But in this, too, our perspective can change. So often we spend those early years as parents just trying to get through. Get through the day. The hour. The minute. But the truth is our children might be our greatest chance to change the world.

Here’s how the psalmist would put it in Psalm 127:4: “Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the sons born in one’s youth.” That’s an interesting way to picture a snotty nosed kid, isn’t it? As an arrow? But you know what you call arrows when they’re not in the hands of a warrior? Sticks.

The thing that will determine whether or not our kids are shot into the heart of darkness with skill and accuracy is the one holding the bow. That’s more than a diaper you’ve got in your hands; you are starting from the very beginning to fashion something amazing.

Have lunch with a friend.
With a change in perspective, we can start to see lunch as something more than just getting a burger. That person you’re sitting across from? That’s a human being who, by their very nature, have been created in the image of God. That means, as CS Lewis famously said, we never encounter a mere mortal. Every single person you come in contact with today is on a trajectory somewhere for all eternity.

With the right perspective, we can start to see casual conversation as anything but casual; it’s an opportunity to intersect with a being that’s going to be an eternal picture of God’s glorious grace or His glorious justice.

It’s all the lenses we put on when we see these common, everyday occurrences in each of our lives. The question for us is whether we want to see them as they are, or will we turn away again and again and miss the chance for significance standing right in front of us.

My #boringbook about finding an extraordinary God in an ordinary life available here.