Most people we know desire to be successful and create memorable accomplishments throughout their lives. And truth be told, many of us are not much different. We want to be known too. We want to become someone others consider to be important. Honestly, we want to be someone others consider extraordinary.

Instead of making it our aim to be considered extraordinary by our peers, what if we make it our aim to be servants of God who live extraordinary lives? The truth is most of us will never arrive at the extraordinary level we might desire, but we all can become servants of God who live extraordinary lives.

If we were to take a survey of the most extraordinary individuals in the Bible, only a few people would make such a list. Why? Because the majority of the people we read about in the Bible were not extraordinary. They were simple, ordinary servants of God. Consider the apostles. How many of them would we truly consider to be extraordinary men? Maybe 2 or 3? What about all the rest though? If they were not extraordinary, what were they? In my opinion, they were simply servants of God who lived extraordinary lives.

Take the apostle Andrew as an example. He was a fisherman by trade. In his day and time, a fisherman wasn’t a special profession; it was just a common job. If you stop and think about it, Andrew would not make our top 10 list of extraordinary people from the Bible. He may not even be in our list of the top 20. However, this ordinary servant of God lived a pretty extraordinary life.

Three times in the Gospel of John we see Andrew accomplishing something for God, but it’s probably not what you would think. Andrew is not mentioned for raising the dead or preaching an eloquent sermon. Instead, all three times we see Andrew bringing people to Jesus (Jn. 1:40-42; 6:9; 12:20-22). And one of the people he brought was his brother, Simon Peter.

If we make a list comparing these two brothers, most of us would say Peter was more extraordinary than Andrew. But perhaps we are just looking at the idea of “extraordinary” in the wrong way. Sure, Peter was an extraordinary individual who did much good for the Kingdom of God. And if we turn out like Peter, that’s great! However, if we humbly serve and lead people to Jesus like Andrew, that’s extraordinary too.

Maybe you and I will never achieve extraordinary status. We may never preach a sermon to thousands of people or perform mighty miracles that cause the lame to walk. We may never be considered an extraordinary person like Peter, but we can all live extraordinary lives like Andrew and lead other people to Jesus.

Now that’s Something to Think About!