ALL IN....
It’s interesting how the Lord gets our attention sometimes
(and, by sometimes, I mean yesterday morning).
My life is always hectic. I have
come to expect that as a Pastor’s wife, mother of three, a grandmother of one,
a full time work away from home kinda mom, and so on and so forth. I feel weird
when I’m not rushed. However, I don’t
really think about it, I just do it.
My public job is a rather boring one (I hope my boss doesn’t
stumble across this blog). There is not
a whole lot to do so a majority of my time is spent looking for things to
do. Yesterday morning I went in, my boss
was kind of moving in a hurried fashion trying to get some things done for a
presentation that she had. She told me
that she would probably need for me to help her later in the morning. I went back to my office and read my email
and drank my coffee looking forward to having something to do.
A short while later, she came in with a big stack of
papers. She told me how to put them
together and said that she hoped to leave by nine. I looked at the time on my PC, and it was
8:36. There were 50 packets of papers to
put together.
Also going on at this time was a birthday party for one of
my co-workers in our area. It was
supposed to start at 8:30 but they were running late getting things
together. So at 8:38 the first person
came in and said, “It’s time for the party, come on in the break room.” I said, “thanks” and kept on stapling. The second person came in with the same
announcement and said, “Since you look like you’re staying in your office, will
you let anyone that comes in know that we’ll be back in about ten
minutes?” I smiled, said, “Sure” and
kept right on stapling. The third person
came in and asked if I were coming into the party. I told her that I had a last minute project
and that I would need to finish it before I could join them. She said, “Well, we’ve got a birthday
card. Could you just come in and sign
that?” I jumped up and briskly walked to
the break room and signed the card.
At about ten till nine, I finished stapling and noticed that
I had a stack left of one of the papers.
I counted the packets that I had put together and there were 39. What???39???
I went to my boss’s office and told her that I didn’t have 50. She was still making copies. I took what she had back to my office and
started putting them together. In a few
minutes she came with the rest of the papers and we were able to get them all
put together in time.
When she left and I was able to take a breath, I just
thought to myself, “I’ve sat here for days with not much of anything to do and today
it was like a mad rush to get things done.”
Isn’t that kind of how life is? When I was in the ‘heat of the battle’
stapling my little heart out the thought went through my head, “Are you all in?” I mean, is it just me or do those last minute
rushes that get your blood pumping make you think about your allegiance? Is this work really worth getting worked up
about? Yesterday I could’ve been in the
break room eating pumpkin muffins, drinking orange juice and singing Happy
Birthday with my co-workers. I could’ve
been rubbing elbows with some of the ‘higher ups’. But, I was stapling what seemed to be endless
stacks of papers.
Was it worth it? Well, let’s see…..I prayed and prayed for God
to move me out of that dungeon of a cashier’s office. Down there, I had enough work for three
people but was expected to keep it all done and up to date. I prayed, God answered. Was it worth it? Yes. I
will say it again….YES!
So, God
showed me some things.
1.
I want
you all in.
There are several verses in the Bible that
tell us that we should serve the Lord to the best of our abilities and with all
of our might.
Colossians
3:23
And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men;
Ecclesiastes
9:10
Whatsoever thy hand findeth to
do, do it with thy might;
We are here for a reason. God wants us to focus on what he has for us
to do and then do it. What is your
ministry? Whatever it is, give it all
you’ve got.
2.
There will be distractions.
I
had a job to do. The other co-workers
that were coming in and trying to get me to join them saw the important thing
as the birthday party. I knew that there
was something more important that I had to do.
My job was to focus on the packets.
Put them together, staple, repeat, repeat, etc.
There
will be many distractions in our ministry.
The devil is good at putting road blocks and getting our attention and
dangling shiny things in front of our noses, but we’ve got to keep on the right
path.
3.
If you get off track,
get back on and keep going.
So, the thing is, I’m
the newbie. I don’t know a lot of my new
co-workers and if I hadn’t have signed the birthday card the lady would’ve
never known. But the carrot was so orange
dangling in my face…..it looked good. I
just had to take a bite. I had to have a
little part…my name on the BIRTHDAY CARD.
LOL I got up and signed the card,
but I came right back and got back to work.
Sometimes it’s not that easy to get back on track. Sometimes the Lord has to hit us on top of
the head or something to get our attention (or, maybe He just has to do that
with me). Anyway, it’s important to keep
our eyes on the true prize. There are
many people around us who won’t reach that prize if we don’t point them in the
right direction.
So, GET ALL IN and STAY ALL IN. It is important. Someday, someone will thank you for being all
in and helping them get all in.
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