Sometimes I feel sorry for B-sides songs. It doesn’t seem fair. Lesser-known songs can be just as good as—sometimes better than—more popular ones. They can be musical and lyrical masterpieces. Even if they’re not amazing, they still play an important role in rounding out an artist’s catalog. But since they’re not chosen for radio play, they don’t get much attention.
I think many Christians are like that. If the church was an album and each member was a song, most of us would be B-sides songs, with a few chart toppers scattered throughout. The majority spend little time in the spotlight; only a few spend much of their lives on center stage. I’ll save a discussion of the rights and wrongs of Christian celebrity for another time. Today I would like to focus on the often overlooked ordinary saints who still shine Christ’s light.
come closer
It’s not bad to admire, respect, and want to be like someone, whether our role model is a famous athlete, an artist, a pastor, or a friend. It’s when we idealize (or idolize) a person that things get a little messed up. Sooner or later he or she will do something that disappoints us. We might feel hurt and even betrayed. But it’s our own fault, because we had unrealistic expectations of that person.
In our lives there will always be [people] that we believe to be perfect, or at least closer to perfect than the rest of us. It can be hard not to idolize someone who seems to have it all together. But next time you catch yourself putting someone on a pedestal, remember that no one can hold up under the weight of your expectations.
— Danae Jacobson
It’s easy to idealize someone from a distance. It’s harder to do that with someone you know up close. Getting to know someone (even a person we admire) shows that for all their strengths, they have weaknesses as well.
As we accept that even those we are tempted to put on a pedestal have flaws, we’re freed to appreciate ordinary heroes. Choosing grace lifts others up in love even as it lowers our expectations, reminding us not to expect them to be superstars. We’re all sinners and saints in need of God’s grace.
everyday saints
We are accustomed to thinking of saints as extremists of the faith, women and men who give up everything… We think saints excel at the life of faith… They provide a hero’s story that we can keep at arm’s length while we live our more ordinary and realistic Christian lives.
It’s simpler and more comforting to think of saints as heroes and healers, and not as Haley, sitting there right beside us hogging the pew. It’s easier to think of a cathedral as holy than a tiny hut. We want what is holy to be staggering in proportion and awe-inspiring in height and space—to be other than we are ourselves—because that’s easier, and we know our insides so well. We believe that we are not holy, even though Scripture has repeatedly told us we are holy. We have stubborn ears that do not like to hear. We know our struggles, and we see down into the deep well of our deficits. We live with ourselves, after all, first and most and last. It’s difficult for us to believe that we are holy, because we are so ordinary. We need to be told we are holy so we can start to believe it. Our ordinariness does not mean we are not holy; it means we are eligible.
— Karen Stiller
I fear we’ve relegated the title “saint” to an ethereal realm of holiness obtained by a select few. The truth is, we are all called to be saints. Several times in the Bible, the church is addressed as a gathering of saints, with no qualifiers other than being a believer in Jesus. For example, 1 Corinthians 1:2 (ESV) says, “To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours” (emphasis added).
We receive the mantle of sainthood the moment we enter God’s family. Yet it is also something we grow into. All believers are saints, but some are more saintly as a result of having grown in grace longer.
slowly growing
Growth is often imperceptible to us, either because it is slow, or because it isn’t the kind of growth that we can see, or because we don’t understand it as growth, or for other reasons. There is almost a strange paradox in this growth in many saints. Many of the godliest saints have been profoundly aware of their sin—they grew more rather than less aware of its distorting presence as the years passed. Yet those who know them sometimes find it hard to believe they really struggle with sin like the rest of us. Why? Because when we try to judge growth, we often apply categories of moralism rather than the biblical categories of the Spirit’s fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and truth. We live in a world that works for outward and obvious triumph, so it doesn’t value slow-growing character traits like gentleness and joy. But in God’s kingdom these traits are the places of real growth and development.
— Kelly Kapic
The best growth often comes slowly. It’s easy to forget that and expect others to grow at a faster pace, but that’s not how most growth happens. In general, it comes gradually, one decision at a time.
In our focus on the sensational, both victories and failures, let us not forget the value of ordinary faithfulness. Let’s not be so dazzled by the stars that shine from afar that we overlook the saints who surround us, quirky as they might be.
Remember, B-sides songs can be beautiful too.
This is a favorite topic of mine. Thank you, Hannah Grace, for shedding light into a place left in the dark.
You’re certainly welcome, Elizabeth! I agree that it is an important but often neglected topic.