This picture won't get a ton of likes on Instagram or go viral. it is just a picture of bricks in a column in a shopping center. It is perfectly ordinary, But then again, so are stories about seeds, lamps, and farmers. They aren't stories about superheroes or alien invasions or inspiring actions or true love. They are stories of an ordinary farmer sowing seeds and a few sentences about lamps being hidden under a basket, or what can happen when a tiny seed is planted. Yet these stories known as parables have helped change the world. InMark 4, it is one parable after another told by Jesus. Simple stories to illustrate a bigger point.
This came together for me when I listened to Rob Bell's latest podcast where part of it spoke to how we do not need to measure ourselves by online hits, views, or likes but by the changes of hearts or minds opened - two measures that are a lot harder to quantify. Jesus' parables weren't fancy or dramatic or long, but they were ordinary stories of ordinary people or ordinary things that pointed to the work of the extraordinary God behind it all. Sounds a lot like how God is at work today. Ordinary people doing ordinary things can bring about ordinary results in the extraordinary power of God that can change the world one heart or one mind at a time.
