One of my favourite friends grew up down South, attending a church called "The Old Regular Baptist Church."
I don't know if I'd fit in at that church. I'm not old - yet. And I'm not sure what they mean by regular - though I eat a healthy serving of fibre every day. I'm not even a purebred Baptist.
But I'm regularly ordinary, if that's what it means. And I'm plain, too. People who meet me after reading my books or articles have said things like, "You're so (and then they stop, as though they've already said too much, and are afraid that if they go any further, they'll incriminate themselves - or embarrass me.) Then they gulp and finish. "You're soordinary!"
Maybe it's because I am so ordinary that the people I'm most comfortable with are also ordinary. Folks who mispronounce words every now and then. People who don't have perfect memories. Women who roll out of bed on a Saturday morning and clean their own houses in their pyjamas. Friends who struggle like I do with eating and praying and loving; pride and greed and selfishness. People who remember they're human, and don't mind letting others know.
I have acquaintances who are renowned speakers and authors. Gifted friends whose names are known around the world. You'd know some of them, if I dropped them. (I won't because it's best to keep fighting that pride thing.)
Know what I've learned about those people? They're ordinary too; not too different from me at all. But totally willing for God to fill them to the top, stir them to the bottom, and pour them out in dry and thirsty places. In the doing of all that, they accomplish so much good that others believe them to be extra-ordinary.
Long ago another ordinary woman did that. A very young one. Christians call her the Virgin Mary, and what God poured out of her was called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
If you're ordinary too, stop imagining that God can't use you. No cup alone - no matter how fine, can satisfy thirst - only what's inside the cup can do that.
So be ordinary, be filled with God's Holy Spirit, and be used.
