So my first reaction is, "Wouldn't that be cool if that was real? We wouldn't have to worry about the church budget anymore, we could fund all of the missionaries in the world...no more worries!"
But then the truth of the matter came clearly back into my mind. In fact, it was easy for that truth to come to the fore because our Pastor, Tre Smith, had just preached a great sermon on the subject of agendas...ours vs. God's. One of the features that he drew out from the passage of Luke 24, where there are two disciples of Jesus walking to Emmaus just days after the crucifixion, was that they were a bit down because Jesus had failed to be the redeemer that they expected. What they expected was a conquering hero that would vanquish the enemy they perceived as their greatest (the Romans) and restore the glory of Israel. But God's agenda was different. He vanquished the enemy that was the far greater threat, but that they didn't understand - sin - through his heinous death...a death without dignity.
So this trillion dollar bill reminded me that as we look to our ministry, it might be easy to hope that all would be taken care of in an instant and what we think our biggest challenge is (money) would be set to rest. But then we wouldn't do a very good job of living by faith. God is putting us in a position where we have to live by faith, not by sight. We have to be taught to depend on him. We have to learn that we cannot just will that our desires be glorifying to God. We must instead learn to be used by God in our broken, fragile state so that he obtains his glory. He is working on the real biggest challenge that we have - our lack of faith.
This also meshes well with a principle laid out a few weeks ago by one of our instructors at Wycliffe, Diana Stuhr. The principle is that God is having us to live by faith so that he can be glorified by letting us in on a miracle here and there. Why did God let the thousands on the hillside be fed by a little boy's fishes and loaves? Certainly God could have called down any manner of provision - he had for years in the desert centuries before in the form of manna. But he decided to let his disciples and the little boy in on a miracle in order to build their faith. Why did Jesus have Peter go fishing in order to find the drachmas necessary for the temple tax in a fishes mouth? He could have made that money appear in any manner of ways. But he did it the way he did to let Peter in on a miracle and to build his faith. Why are we called to share the word of God, so that by hearing people might believe? Surely God could appear in a vision and explain it to others much more clearly. But he wants us in on the miracle of saving faith.
And so it is with us as we begin our journey to serving the Lord. Our raising of funds, fielding of prayer partners and moving to Africa is his way of letting us all in on a miracle - to build our faith.
No comments:
Post a Comment