To Those Who Fear They Aren’t Radical Enough

Growing up as a teenager in the church, there were a lot of calls to step up and do something radical. Don’t be content with being ordinary. Be bold and take risks for God. Do something extreme and revolutionary. That’s how you grow your faith and glorify God in the best way possible.

That message hasn’t changed much as I’ve grown older. I still hear it preached to the generation before me, but I also hear a differently crafted version for my generation as well. As a mom, I’m never doing enough to raise my children faithfully. There’s always another activity, another book to read, another practice to incorporate into our daily lives, and the like to be a more radical parent. As a churchgoer, I’m never taking enough faith-led risks for God. I’m living my life far too safely; I need to step out in faith for God—the riskier, the better. In my creative life, I’ve struggled to be okay with reading novels and even writing novels that aren’t explicitly Christian fiction. Am I wasting my skills and God-given abilities? What if I could be pointing people to God in a more radical way?

My husband has struggled with shame that being a mere luthier or knife scale crafter isn’t a faithful calling for his life. What if he’s wasting his life and God isn’t being as glorified through him as he could be? 

If you’ve felt any of these feelings too, I don’t think we’re alone. Generation after generation has been admonished that we’re not doing enough by simply living a quiet and ordinary life. But let me encourage you: I don’t think we’re glorifying God any less. Consider the words of Paul to the church in Thessalonica: “But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one,” (1 Thess. 4:10b–12).

You are called by God to live a quiet life. You don’t have to be leading social justice groups or speaking from podiums to the masses to glorify God. You don’t have to be taking crazy risks for God. He calls you to live quietly, steward the things he’s put in front of you, and work with your hands to provide for yourself and your family. This glorifies God and puts us in good standing before the world so we can better minister to them. This is the beautiful calling God has for your life, and when you neglect it for any other work, that’s when you stop glorifying God.

Dorothy Sayers (a contemporary of C. S. Lewis) saw a similar problem even in her day and age. People believed that church work was a more holy calling than ordinary work. To help give people a better theology of ordinary work, she gave an address at Eastbourne, England, on April 23, 1942. “Let the Church remember this,” she declared, “that every maker and worker is called to serve God in his profession or trade—not outside it.” She went on to say,

The Apostles complained rightly when they said it was not meet they should leave the word of God and serve tables; their vocation was to preach the word. But the person whose vocation it is to prepare the meals beautifully might with equal justice protest: It is not meet for us to leave the service of our tables to preach the word. The official Church wastes time and energy, and, moreover, commits sacrilege, in demanding that secular workers should neglect their proper vocation in order to do Christian work—by which she means ecclesiastical work. The only Christian work is good work well done. Let the Church see to it that the workers are Christian people and do their work well, as to God: then all the work will be Christian work, whether it is Church embroidery, or sewage-farming.

What kind of work glorifies God? Sayers defines good work as that can be performed without human degradation, contemptible, soul-destroying, or harmful. “He must be able to serve God in his work, and the work itself must be accepted and respected as the medium of divine creation.” Does your work meet this criteria? If your work meets this criteria, Sayers said that “when a man or woman is called to a particular job of secular work, that is as true a vocation as though he or she were called to specifically religious work.” God isn’t only at work in certain spaces; he is at work in all spaces and vocations, calling his people to reflect his creative, redemptive work in their ordinary vocations. 

Do you have an ordinary job where you saw wood? You’re glorifying God by providing for your family and providing wood for others so they can provide for their family. Well done. Do you write novels for others to enjoy after a long day of work? Well done—you point people to the greatest Storyteller. Do you stock supermarket shelves and run groceries on a conveyor belt? Well done! You not only provide food for your family but make it easier for others to do so as well, and your smile to your customers reflects the greater kindness of God. Do you care for little children so their parents’ can work? Well done! You are showing little children that they are loved and valuable, and helping their parents provide for their basic needs. Are you a stay-at-home mom wiping faces and homeschooling rowdy little ones? Well done; you are discipling those tiny image bearers to follow Jesus.

Perhaps by the time you finish your work of this ordinary job, you’re exhausted. You throw together Kraft Dinner for the kids, play with them, and get them to bed at a decent hour. Well done. You’ve taken care of your family and shown them the love of Christ. You reflect your Heavenly Father to your children every time you approach them with kindness, proper discipline, forgiveness, and guidance. As you prayed with them before bed or read a Bible story to them from a premade plan or pre-written devotional, you taught them about God and showed them that faith is important to you. This is your calling, and you glorify God as you fulfill it.

Maybe by the end of the week, you’re even more tired and worn out. Work is stressful, raising kids always has its ups and downs, and marriage is a journey. When you walk through those doors on Sunday, you come seeking gospel refreshment through the preaching, Lord’s Supper, baptisms, and fellowship. You give financially to support this church you love and chat with the friends you’ve formed in it through coffee dates, game nights, and making meals for one another. This is the place where God calls you to rest in receiving all the gifts he bestows on his church: Fellowship, the preaching of the Word, the Lord’s Supper, and baptism.

Dear reader, you are gloriously, faithfully ordinary. Well done. 

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