The Extraordinary Life

Matthew 24:29,30 The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven… and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

As a child, I dreamt of the apocalypse. It was just a dream, but I can still see it quite clearly.  In the dream, I awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of explosions and went outside to investigate.   Though it was night, the sky was lit with an eerie orange glow as the world was consumed in nuclear fire.  I could see the souls of the dying drifting upward towards heaven.  Soon, I too was floating up like a leaf on the wind.  Like I said, it was just a dream, but it was the kind that sticks with a kid.

Whenever I read these verses, I am reminded of that vision.  In the passage, Jesus’ disciples asked him about the end of the world.  I am not sure that I understand much of what He said, but He clearly described a time of radical change that will occur someday.  The world will not always remain as it is now.  Someday, the ordinary will fade and the extraordinary will be revealed.

A friend and I were recently discussing that which keeps us from pursuing God as we should.  We decided that our distractions today are not the big defects of our flesh nature.  We have both made some poor decisions in life, but we realized that our main distraction from God is not obvious moral failure, it is often just the daily routine of life.  It is the mundane that keeps us from the extraordinary.

I may not be struggling with drug addiction today, for which I am tremendously thankful, but does that mean I am living in the extraordinary communion with God that He intends for me?  If He has delivered me from me and if He is the most important thing in my life, do I live like it?

For most of us, it is not that we intend to ignore God.  We are just too consumed with the mundane to spend much time with him.  Jesus’ words serve as a reminder to us that the routine of today is not all there is.  He is calling us to a life that is anything but ordinary.

Someday, the extraordinary may be obvious, but for now, it is not. Odds are, I will not see the apocalypse and frankly, I do not want to.  It sounds terrifying.  I can however, choose to live a life outside of the ordinary and mundane.

When I look back at my life three years ago, I can clearly see how I should have made different choices.  I look back with sorrow and regret at my destruction. I do not want to get to the end of my life and look back and see that I left an addiction to drugs only to live in an addiction to the mundane.  I want to follow Christ into the life less ordinary.

If I want God and if I want to know the extraordinary life that He offers, I need to daily choose to leave behind self and follow him.  I need to purposefully embrace the extraordinary.