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Christmas Countdown 2019….Day 19

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Luke 19 is providing some meat to chew on today. 

Here are a few thoughts.

I see what I want to be in verses 11-27 parable about Investment and I see what I am more often than not. 

Because God has given me so much and I want to multiply it back to Him. 

The problem occurs when my perfectionist tendencies can send me digging a hole in the ground and burying it until I can figure out how to make it look really good for Him. 

Or so I say.

I used to do that with this little slice of the internet. 

What God has gifted me to do is rather public and being a people-pleaser to the core I often approach this with deep concerns over how people will take what I wrote.

I wonder if I will have to defend a position or explain something I meant to be light-hearted. 

Years ago when Russ encouraged me to write, I told him…good grief…I write all the time. 

And he looked at me as only he can and said…yes, but no one ever gets to read it. 

Because of my better half I started putting it out there and all the while I prayed for God to protect it so that I wouldn’t have to face criticism. 

That’s wrong, people. 

It’s not my gift.

I don’t even see it as a gift so I waste it or hide it so that …. get this…I don’t look silly or foolish or braggish or get misjudged or misunderstood or hurt. 

This is what God has given me to do and because it means people will see it there is a risk involved. 

I don’t know what your deal is. 

I am thinking of some people I know who are gifted in less public ways. 

I am going to call them out right now….I know people who go to church on various weekday mornings and they cook food and load it onto carts and drive it across town to feed people at a place called the Good Samaritan Inn. 

I do not know what is hard for them about this. 

The people they work with to get all this done? The time it takes out of their day of other obligations? The people they serve? Maybe they don’t like how the messy food look as they put it on plates and they struggle with making conversation or maybe they enjoy it very much but feel helpless to help the ones they are serving because tomorrow…those little kids and adults will be hungry again. 

I know a lady who loves to work efficiently and has a small office tucked away where she can just be one on one with her computer and her tasks. 

She’s incredibly organized and cut and dried and yet she works with students and educators on a regular basis. 

I have been to her office several times and I can tell you, you have to be looking for her to find her back in her cozy digs. 

She had an extra chair in that office and she was contemplating moving it out because people who dropped in tended to sit down and visit. 

She saw it as an interruption to what she is supposed to be doing, but thankfully God stopped her before she got rid of the chair. 

That chair is a place where random people, me included, have plopped down with one question but ended up opening up about some other things. 

Because while her gifts include administration, she is also gifted as a wise counselor who points people to Christ for guidance and accountability.

I know someone who makes room in her schedule and empty nest to help a young single mom with her children. 

I know men who use their trucks to clear driveways of snow and I know people who go visit the shut in’s in our church who don’t have family nearby. 

I know people who develop a heart for others who may or may not change, but they just can’t avoid the nagging burden to offer someone a leg up in the hopes that this time it will take hold.

Investing for the Kingdom. That’s what we do. 

We are given much and we give much and we get more so we invest more…and on and on and on it goes.

It’s a beautiful concept. 

These are not stellar days in the country we call our residence, but in the Kingdom we call home…there is a good system in place for investing all of our resources. 

And every seed planted, every person served, every step taking…will bear much fruit.

There are no small callings, no accidental giftings, no unnoticed sacrifices made for the Kingdom of God. 

He gave you the things you need to do the works prepared in advance for you. 

Now go out and invest wisely in His Name and for His Glory <3

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