A Tiny Spot

Just for You, from Carolyn

One morning recently as I started talking with my Father, I asked Him what He wanted me to do today. I sensed His answer came in the following poem whose author is unknown. 

Father, where shall I work today'
And my love flowed warm and free.
Then He pointed me out a tiny spot,
And said, “Tend that for me.”

I answered quickly, “Oh, no, not that.
Why, no one would ever see,
No matter how well my work was done.
Not that little place for me!”

And the word He spoke, it was not stern,
He answered me tenderly,
“Ah, little one, search that heart of thine;
Art thou working for them or me'

Nazareth was a little place,
And so was Galilee.” 

Even with the pandemic, even with aging, even with disabilities and health issues, even with increased responsibilities in the dailies, neither you nor I are sidetracked. Whether we are in a secular spot of necessity or a hidden spot, we are in the spot God wants us to “tend” today as unto Him. It certainly means treating those around us with His kindness, with His respect, with His care. With prayer. It means knowing that God sees and has both a plan and a reason for each of us right where we are. Even if ours is a tiny spot. The size and scope of our opportunities are planned by a wise and caring Father.

Perhaps you must work in a job that keeps you from “ministering,” as if the two things are divorced. Which they never are. Perhaps you have responsibilities at home that “limit” your ability to get out and about as you once did. Perhaps you have health issues that have immobilized you or slowed you way down. Perhaps you have retired and feel that your world has shrunk to what seems insignificance. 
 
The truth is that where I am today is the spot God has picked for me to serve Him today. Where you are today is the spot He has picked for you to serve Him today. We can pray for contentment and the ability to represent Him well wherever He places us today.  When others don’t see, God sees. Also angels and demons give Him praise when one of His own serves Him with contentment, joy and hope right where she/he is. Even if ours is a tiny spot. Size does not matter to God.

 “Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with   everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen”

Hebrews 13:20,21

Carolyn Roper

October 12, 2020 

Days of Rage

“Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, that wage war against the soul” (1 Peter 2:11).

Fredrick Buechner compares rage to a sumptuous meal: ”To savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back; in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you” (Wishful Thinking).

 

I understand the rage of the marginalized and disadvantaged. “You have not,” is James’ poignant response to the wrath that drives violent, destructive protest (James 4:2). 

 

But of all the passions of the flesh, rage is the most self-destructive: Wrath-filled men and women become bitter, sullen victims of their own frustration and wrath. In the end they have nothing to live for but their rage. 

 

Dante, journeying through hell and moving toward the fourth circle’s farthest edge, finds a dark watercourse that discharges into a marsh called "the Styx." Here the wrathful are forever doomed, denied the mercy of forgetting. They stand, stark naked in the bog, striking one another with their heads, chests, hands and feet, tearing one another’s flesh with their teeth (Inferno, Canto VII).

 

Jesus, however, had another, better, more hopeful take: “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, 'The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest'” (Matthew 9:36,37). 

 

Angry, driven fools, or a field ripe for harvest? It’s a matter of perspective. 

 

David Roper

10.17.10

The Unhurried Life

I'm in a hurry to get things done

I rush and rush until life's no fun

All I really got to do is live and die

But I'm in a hurry and don't know why. 

 

—Alabama

 

Philosopher Dallas Willard was asked to describe Jesus. "Unhurried," was his laconic reply.

 

Jesus had an infinite job to do and only 3 1/2 years to do it and yet his pace was always measured and slow. He was never in a hurry because he relied solely on his Father to get his work done. 

 

Our harried pace is a measure of our self-reliance. There are important things to be done and we must do them. Tempus fugit! We don't have a moment to waste.

 

Someone once pointed out to me that there's essential difference between our presence on a bus bench and on a park bench. When we sit on a bus bench we fidget and fret and shuffle our feet; we recheck the schedule, glance at our watches and hope our stay will be as brief as possible so we can get on with our lives. 

 

When we're sitting on a park bench we’re just there—relaxed, watching children at play, catching the rays, smelling the flowers, listening to the birds, looking at the clouds—in the moment. We have no other place to go and nothing else to do. This is the unhurried life.

 

You and I can be park bench people—laying aside our activity —if we know that God is always at work. Over and over we must make the difficult but essential choice to be at rest, to be quiet, to wait, to do nothing and let God get on with his business. 

 

We rise and shine and hit the floor running, eager to get started at the break of day. The Hebrew calendar day began in the evening, for nothing essential stops while we rest. Israel’s poet wrote, 

 

"It is in vain that you rise up early

and go late to rest,

eating the bread of anxious toil;

for [God] gives to his beloved while they sleep" (Psalms 127:2).

 

David Roper

10.20.20