Extraordinary

Extraordinary

Proverbs 22: 6 ESV

Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.

"All of it began the first time some of you who know better and are old enough to know better let young people think they had the right to choose the laws they would obey, as long as they were doing it in the name of social protest!" These were the words of Ronald Reagan as he attempted to speak wisdom into the hearts of a people unwilling to accept responsibility. Looking at the text of Proverbs it is easy to see how our country generally and California specifically could find itself in the position we now find ourselves. A generation trained in this manner did not quickly depart from it. That generation has grown older and yet rejected wiser. Maintaining the “right” to pick and choose what laws are to be obeyed and which are to be rejected under the guise of protest.

It is easy to bemoan the “younger generation”, to sit back and look down the proverbial nose at short comings of that generation. To blame teachers and politicians for what is scene. It is much more difficult to recognize our own sin in the events at hand. Sins of omission are more insidious than those of commission. The sin of commission is easy to find, yet the sin of omission is found in its not being present. How often has the church found itself not present? The church is not an entity on a corner with a steeple. It is a group of people gathered together. Those people have the right and privilege to be on boards, to teach in schools, to serve as rec league coaches, to employ youth and train them in the way they should go.

I am however given to hope. As two young men were rightly acclaimed heroes for the sacrifice of their lives in the defense of their classmates. Riley Howell (age 21) and Kendrick Castillo (age 18) both gave their lives in serving their fellow students as armed assailants were rampaging. Let us not be fools and think that heroism is born in a vacuum. These men, for such have earned the title others simply age into, give me hope for the nation. One historical commentator noted we would probably never have another George Washington or Abraham Lincoln simply because extraordinary circumstances required extraordinary men and our nation does not want extraordinary circumstances. Yet we, as a nation, find ourselves in such circumstances and these men should give us hope that God has not left us destitute for young men of extraordinary caliber.

“Extra” ordinary is what is required of us, the elect of God. When we do the simply ordinary things. We are faithful in the reading of God’s word, the prayer for the saints, the gathering together under the preaching of God’s word, drawing together in communion all these little things, these ordinary things, build themselves into “extra” ordinary results. The church in the United States may never see awakening again. I would argue that simply, we don’t have the desire to do all the ordinary things to become extra-ordinary. Then I am given hope. As some I see willing to faithfully allow the means of grace wash over them. Will you allow God to faithfully move you to extraordinary, or will you choose to be the old man yelling at the Kids to get of the grass?

Coram Deo