For the past couple weeks, we've looked at how God works at making us masterpieces and diamonds, even though at this moment in time, we may look more like a mess of paint or just dust. God's work often involves changes to our plans. Being remade, even if we are willing isn't necessarily an easy process.
Max Lucado notes, in his book And the Angels were Silent, that we all have gifts to ‘move the
Kingdom down the road’. Focusing on the episode in Matthew 21 where Jesus sends
2 disciples to get a donkey right before his entry into Jerusalem, Lucado goes
on to say, “All of us have a donkey. You and I each have something in our
lives, which, if given back to God, could, like the donkey, move Jesus and his
story further down the road. Maybe you can sing or hug or program a computer or
speak Swahili or write a check. Whichever, that’s your donkey. Whichever, your
donkey belongs to him. It really does
belong to him. Your gifts are his and the donkey was his.”
This past couple of days, I have been at the annual Assembly
and Retreat of the Daughters of the King in the Diocese of the Rio Grande. Over
the past 6 years, I was honored to use my gifts to move the Daughters of the
King part of the Kingdom down the road a bit further as the diocesan president.
Now it is someone else’s turn.
Of course, letting go of one ministry means I need to
evaluate what to do with the time and talent I was using in that role. Proverbs
16:1-4 tells us, “The plans of the mind
belong to mortals, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. All one’s
ways may be pure in one’s own eyes, but the Lord weighs the spirit. Commit your work to the Lord, and your
plans will be established. The Lord has made everything for its purpose…”
As the citation notes, human minds make plans, but God
weighs (tests) the spirit of the action. Only when we ‘commit our work to the
Lord’ can we accomplish anything. I often ponder my gifts and contributions.
Culture says that we can count our ‘success’ in numbers. Numbers of attendees,
or purchases, or income. God doesn’t count that way. Back in 2016, Mark Roberts
of Life for Leaders at the DuPree Institute remarked, “No matter the work you
do, whether you’re a writer, a banker, a mother, a bricklayer, or you-name-it,
your greatest success is the assurance that God values your work and that what
you are doing makes a difference for God in the world.”
We are often pointed to the Parable of the Talents (Matthew
25:14-30) as a way to measure our work for God. Are we producing or hiding our
‘talents’? Recently I heard a meditation pointing to the Parables of the
Mustard Seed and Yeast as another way of measuring our ministry.
In those twin parables, Jesus tells the crowds, “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed
that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds,
but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that
the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches…[and] the kingdom of
heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of
flour until all of it was leavened.” (Matthew 13:31-33)
It is not necessarily the big things that make the greatest
difference or impact. It is the small, day-to-day actions, which point to God’s
love, that can create the most change. It’s easy to think we must do more, give more, or get more
involved in issues. Doing little things may not seem to make a difference. You
may have heard of the woman who each year planted a few daffodil bulbs.
Ultimately the entire hillside was covered. A little mustard seed in the
ground, as Jesus notes, becomes a bush for birds. Something similar happens
when you mix a little yeast with flour and water. The next thing you know you
have a bubbly mixture that will become bread. The bread can feed a crowd. The
teaspoon of yeast couldn’t feed anyone, but the bread it makes does.
Whether you are planting a mustard seed of a ministry that
someday turns into an international blessing, adding a few daffodils to a
hillside, or yeast to water and flour, the end result is a blessing to those involved.
What is your ‘donkey’, Max Lucado asks? What mustard seed, daffodil bulb, or yeast are you nurturing?How is God working in you to grow a great harvest?
