I’m grateful for online restaurant reviews. Rather than wasting time and money on a sub-par meal in a dumpy dining room (or, these days, in a parking lot), I can quickly scroll through the comments on my favorite travel app. If 458 people enjoyed a restaurant’s brioche French toast, chances are, I will too. All those five-star ratings give me confidence I’ll have the best brunch I could have.

But, when it comes to my life as a whole, it’s harder to quantify whether I’m really experiencing the best. There’s no app to tell me the optimal way to spend my time. There’s no ratings system to assign a score to my life choices. There’s no shower of emoji hearts to assure me that my moments and days are really the best they could be.

In a world where almost everything is a potential “top pick,” it’s encouraging to know that the life of faith is usually at its best when it’s downright ordinary. Going to church, reading your Bible, loving your family, working hard, and being a good friend may not seem significant, but, as Melissa Kruger wrote, “Whatever God has called you to, faithfully fulfill the ministry you’ve received from him. Ordinary lives can produce extraordinary fruit.”

Or, as Elisabeth Elliot said, when in doubt, just “do the next thing.”

In Christ,