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When I was younger I regularly attended Christian summer camps. At one of these camps, during an evening meeting, God gave me a picture of what a women was saying before she said it. It was the first time this had happened. I wasn’t from a background where that sort of thing happened, but being a confident (aka arrogant) young man I went to the front and shared what had occurred. At the end of the meeting one of the female leaders came up to me and said something I have never forgotten – ‘God is going to do great things through you.’ She meant well, but I honestly believe it was one of the worst things she could have said.
When you tell a young overly confident boy that he will achieve great things for God, his mind goes into the stratosphere. He does not realise that great does not necessarily mean big, he does not equate thousands of small acts of faithfulness to great, he sees the spotlight and the big stage.
I have always sympathised with the plight of the servant who was given one talent, his master’s response always seemed overly harsh, but now I can see the grace in it. The master was looking to see who could find greatness in the small things. The everyday things. The things no one notices. This realisation is echoed time and time again in Scripture. What I couldn’t see at 12 was that chances to do great things for God are not rare, they are plentiful.
Luke 19:17 “‘Well done, my good servant!’ his master replied. ‘Because you have been trustworthy in a very small matter, take charge of ten cities.’”
Anthony Baker said:
Great post, Nick. Absolutely true. I posted it on Facebook.
Nick said:
Thanks Anthony.
Nick said:
Just realised that we haven’t put a link to your blog on the side bar! That will be rectified in the next few days!
Ian Burrell said:
Good point, very well made!
Nick said:
Thanks Ian.
mcrtbcrew said:
Thanks for reminding us that it’s the little things that count.
Nick said:
And without being faithful in them we will never reach the ‘big’ things!
Out of Eden Ministries said:
Awesome post! I’m going to share it on facebook.
Nick said:
Thank you very much. A link to your blog should be appearing in the side bar soon!
Steve said:
Bit late, I missed this post somehow. The parable you mention reminds me of something Dallas Willard said “God will happily give us as much power as we can cope with”. So the master knew the maturity of the different servants and gave each one a different amount. Even the one who got the small amount had the ability to do someting with it, according to the master. He just chose not to, because he had a bad view of the master.