Recently had a study with my friends on prophetess Anna, amazing things about someone only referenced in 3 verses in the entire Bible. My favourite thing about her has to be that she lived the ‘ordinary but expected Christian life’.

What is an ordinary Christian life you might be thinking?

This becomes a fair question because the term has evolved as a social construct and not from the bible. They were just called Christians in the book of Acts. Neither was ordinary or extraordinary but if you look deeply at characters in the bible, you’ll see that some did the seeming extraordinary and engaged the supernatural. People like Paul and Elijah and Elisha healed the sick, called down fire, outran chariots and even raised the dead with their bones. On the other hand, we see the likes of John the Baptist, Mary the mother of Jesus, Anna the prophet and Simeon who did the seeming ‘ordinary’ things. Prayed, went to the synagogue, fellowshiped with other believers and studied on those who had gone ahead.

Now because of the varying expressions of the supernatural in their lives, there’s a tendency to judge one as extraordinary and the other as ordinary hence the statement that prophetess Anna lived the ordinary but expected Christian life.

Our generation in an attempt to point the world to the cross has now painted the entire Christian journey and experience as extraordinary and supernatural and so when either of these elements are absent, such a person, congregation or environment is dimmed ‘ordinary’.

When we leave all human standards and the semantics that comes with church hierarchy to return back to the bible and look as what characterised the first Christians, you’ll find that it was just the ‘ordinary’ that made them Christians and the power and anointing that we all clamour for now only came to aid the work of saving lost souls, only after the ‘ordinary’ had been done.

This tells us that if we were all saved in the world and didn’t need to contend for lives, the ‘ordinary Christianity’ will be sufficient.

While we aren’t all saved and we still daily commit to saving lost souls, we cannot then abandon the ordinary and seek the extraordinary in a bid to do the work that the ordinary alone will do.

You will see that purpose has also been a determinant of the dimensions of power a person will host. John had no need to perform miracles because his purpose required he come and prepare the way for the coming of the Lord. Likewise, Anna’s purpose had her interceding for over 60 years for the consolation of Israel. She didn’t need to raise the dead to fulfil that purpose.

This isn’t to say that only grace selected people for the supernatural, because the Holy Spirit is now in us, so by all means, we should remain desirous and open for all that God has to open us to, but we must not ever judge the simplicity of prayer, bible study, fellowship with other brethren and daily display of love as ‘ordinary’. Because, as a matter of fact, that ordinary is what got us all saved and what has sustained us till now.

The miraculous and seeming supernatural didn’t come to divide the ordinary from the extraordinary in the body of Christ. That will be an abuse of Gods anointing.

It was given to aid further the spread of the gospel and because it is the same mission were all here for, we must celebrate those chosen by grace to host certain dimensions and at the same time, discipline ourselves to the levels of yieldedness that attracts such dimensions because these dimensions are readily available. We will see the supernatural and extraordinary by constant and consistent engagement with the ordinary.

All Mary did was sit at the feet of Jesus. And Jesus declared that she had chosen that which was most important.