A Nagging Question Bites the Dust

For most of us, Jesus' parable of the talents in Matthew 25 is quite familiar. A master is leaving on a journey and calls to himself his slaves. The three appear, and he entrusts his possessions to them. The possessions are not divided up equally, but actually according to each one's ability. The first receives five talents; the second receives two talents; and the third slave receives one.

Upon the master's return, he settles accounts with each one. The first two slaves have each doubled what they had been entrusted. To each of theses slaves the master responds, "Well done, good and faithful slave; you were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things, enter into the joy of your master." The third slave confesses his fear of the master, so he simply went and hid his master's talent and now proudly returns it to him. The master's response to this third slave is quite different from the first two slaves. The master begins his response to this slave with, "You wicked, lazy slave...."

Now, I can tell that the third slave did something different from the first two. I can also conclude from the parable that what the third slave did(or not did) was wrong, even eternally wrong.

Even though there is a lot that I can understand about this parable, there still remains a nagging, bothering question. My question is, and I have actually had it for a long time, "Show me a 'picture' of what that third slave did?" In other words, "What does '...going away and hiding your talent in the ground' looks like?"

Well, last week, I was shown 'the picture'.

Last Friday, April 22nd was also Earth Day. The company I now work for strongly encourages daily practices to become a GREEN-er place. One challenge set before us this past week was to bring in, for recycling purposes, as many plastic shopping bags as possible. As incentive, the participants with the highest number of bags donated would be rewarded.

I actually placed third, and received a nice prize. The co-worker who contributed the most brought in 147 plastic bags for the Grand Prize.

'The picture', however, began to be revealed to me when another co-worker told me that he could have won, because he had 200 plastic bags crammed into the cabinet beneath his kitchen sink. In the next ten to fifteen minutes, he proceeded to repeat this two more times. "My wife and I have 200 of these plastic bags underneath my kitchen sink." "I just did not bring them in." "If I would have, I would have won first prize."

He had the means;
He was given an opportunity;
He simply did not follow through.

Now I realize that saving and contributing plastic shopping bags to a company project is not an eternal matter. However, the principle established by this mindset, this way of thinking, and this lack of action is very, very dangerous according to this parable.

The point of the parable is this:

The slave had been given the means according to his ability;
Unlike the other two slaves, the third slave could not see the opportunities;
Therefore, his means(talent) remained buried and hidden.

If I, first, do not recognize and understand what my God-given talents and abilities are; and secondly, if I do not fully understand that God will send opportunities in my path to use those given talents and abilities; and finally, if I do not faithfully step into those opportunities that come my way; then I too have taken away my God-given talents and abilities and hidden them in the ground!

And, those 200 plastic shopping bags will remain 'buried' inside that cabinet until....?


Thank you Father for using something as simple as plastic shopping bags to answer a nagging question of mine!

A Deeper Look at the Parable of the Sower...

"Behold, the sower went out to sow..."(Matthew 13:3). These are the words which Jesus used to begin the well known(to most of us) parable of the sower.

For most of my life when I heard these words at the beginning of a sermon, I realized that this was going to be a message with an evangelistic purpose; you know...to reach 'the lost'. "You 'lost ones' in the audience, what is the condition of your heart(the soil)?" "Is your heart prepared(condition of the soil) to accept the salvation God through Jesus and to follow Him faithfully through the rest of your life?" Simply stated, that was the message of this parable for the first fifty years of my life.

Then(I just love 'then')...Yes, then one Sunday morning sitting in a Bible class in the midst of studying this very parable, God allowed His Spirit to use that spiritual 'two-by-four' on me once again! The extended and expounded truth(s) of this parable "hit" me right between my spiritual eyes!

The application of this parable is not so much for the 'lost ones', but for us, the 'following ones'!

This was the 'two-by-four' question for me that morning, "How do I tend to receive God's Word into my own heart?" I have had to ask myself this question many times since then, "When through hearing or reading or studying God's Word, a new or deeper truth is uncovered or revealed to me; how do I tend to receive that revelation?" And maybe even the most important question for me today is: "Does my heart stay prepared to receive deeper truths?"

The way my heart is resting today leaves me with four options with God's truths...

1). with a hardened heart, the word simply is heard, sets on the surface of my life, and the
devil easily takes it away;

2). with an unfocused heart, the word is received initially, but it is not fully accepted nor
understood, so it is soon gone, not to be found;

3). with a preoccupied heart, the word is received like so many other things in life, and
simply gets lost in the mix;

4). with a prepared heart, the word is received gladly, understood, kept possession of
firmly(Luke 8:15), and is therefore applied into one's life.

The evaluation of this in my own life...once, twice...; nope...daily!

A Lesson I May Not Want to Learn...

Estate sales. I find them quite appealing and so very interesting. I saw the fluorescent pink signs advertising one while driving down 21st street between Memorial and Sheridan the other day. I was in no real hurry to get anywhere or to do anything, so I thought I would stop and take a quick look...Big mistake!

Oh really, and why was that?

Because I walked out of the place with $150.00 worth of stuff? No! I spent $3 on a precision screwdriver set, because members of my family and I tend to lose, then find, but then cannot tighten the eyewire screw of our glasses.

Because I spent the rest of my day scouring Tulsa for more estate sales? No! That was the only estate sale I went to that day. And I have not been to another one since.

Because you passed on some items that now you wish you would have purchased? No! Considering all of the 'stuff' this man had had, the screwdriver set was really the only item I considered a need(and really not even a necessity).

No! The big 'mistake', so to speak, was not revealed to me until I was walking back to the pick-up truck. God's inquiring Spirit asked me, "Lee, what would have Jesus' estate sale looked like"? I was so stunned by the question that I thought I had not heard it correctly. Upon hearing the question repeated from the Spirit, I realized that what stunned me was not so much the question itself, but the implication or application of the question in my life!

I can envision these signs posted all over Jerusalem the day after His ascension:

Mini Estate Sale

Possessions of Jesus of Nazareth

Only Two Items:

Cloak

Pair of Sandals

This truth is so profound and so penetrating and potentially so convicting that I cannot wrap my mind around it all yet. However, one aspect of this truth that I have realized is this: it took the laying out/spreading out of another's life accumulations to understand that I have/possess/accumulate/hoard way, way too much!