Most of us are familar with the story of the master who gives 3 servants different amounts of money before he leaves for a trip, then when he returns each servant must give an account of what he has done with the master's money (talents).
When we think about our place in God's Kingdom, most people see themselves in the lime light. We tend to think we'll never be rich or on MTV, but we DO tend to think we'll be pastors of Mega churches or the founders of "the most successful church plant ever". When we think about our place in the Kingdom we wanna be the next Mother Theresa or Billy Graham. Even a John C. Maxwell, business man. We all wanna be the 10 talents guy; no one ever wants to be the guy who gets 1 talent.
Chris Tomlin, in his book The Way I Was Made, talks about how when he made the decision to trust that God was leading him to travel and play music, it was risk. When Chris gave up his pursuit of fame God gave it back to him.
My question is how many of us are still willing to give up our talent, when there's no guarantee we'll ever find that fame or recognition? If our place in the kingdom never extends beyond the shepherding of a country church and dieing quietly with little "fan fair", perhaps only remembered by a handful, are we still willing to invest our talent?
If there is no lime light at the end of the tunnel are we still willing to enter it?
TSB VIII
2 months ago
7 comments:
Why do you keep asking the questions that no one really wants to answer. No, actually, I'm really glad you're asking these questions, because then I have to.
I think we all want to say we'd give it all up, but when the opportunities come up, it's hard.
For me, I love what I'm doing....I do it for the relationships with people, and then chances I see in them, and if this thing dies (which I don't think will happen), then there are no regrets, I know God has used me here.
Then again, just knowing that God is using me is putting myself in the light again, isn't it....
Hmm...I think I'd actually prefer not to be famous.
But in another sense there's a part of me that wants everyone to know that I don't really care about being famous!
That part of me wants to leave this world with little fanfare, but have everyone at my funeral saying, 'he deserved to be famous'
strange
I ask these questions because I have to ask myself them and wonder howamny of us actually pause to consider the very real possibilty that "ministerial fame" will never find us. I figure if I have to struggle to answer these, y'al should too. All 2 of u!
How do you give a talent up to God? I have always found that one of the hardest things in life is to give the things I most want to grip onto to God. Maybe I don't trust enough, or maybe I don't yet posess the knowledge of how to trust something so different than us humans (and yet, ironically someone who became flesh). I don't have high hopes of becomming something famous - in fact often I find myself wondering if I am the guy in the back corner who the rich man forgot to give any talents to. And yet, here I am at university hoping that somehow I will hone in on one talent or another - praying that God will lead me somewhere.
~Py
Pyro: You hit on some awesome points. The fact that God took on flesh and dwelled among us, we tend to forget, like u said. We see God as way out in outer space or as a dude who lived almost 2000 years ago. I think this is one of the reasons we have a hard tiem trusting God. Maybe if we could all get ahold of the reality that God is dwelling within us and has the our ultimate good in mind we might develop more trust.
It's kindof ironic that a currency in 1st century Rome is the same word we have for abilities in 21st century America. Whether it's money or our abilities we still have a hard time giving them to God.
You should change my link to the ltwo.blogspot.com link. I don't really use Xanga anymore.
~Pyro
re: your comment on Matthew's blog... pledging to flags... at the school I work at we pledge first to the Bible, then the Christian flag, then the american flag, then the texas flag... notice which ones I used a capital letter on :)
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