CHAPTER NINE
Go ye
The Lord shall count, when he writeth up the people, that this man was born there.
Even today, our casual encounters are prefaced with: “So, where ya from?” Men, it seems, are soul-knit to their location of note…their origin. Jesus of Nazareth. Saul of Tarsus. Helen of Troy. The phantom of the opera. Even our football stars…15 year veterans…are introduced by the college they attended.
But our location on earth has a twin. We are also fitly weaved into our time, on a 6,000 year tapestry.
For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep.
And this is our time…our generation. We need search no further for the will of God, than to serve this people. Each one of us…in a location recorded in heaven…at the very place where our Lord has put us. Your challenges and trials in life are on a different planet; than a villager in Bangladesh, or an indentured woman in Nairobi…though they be just as valid. Your location is unique. The state of your art, is peculiar to your time only.
Shortly after
Acts 2: 38, it becomes urgent then, that we find our gift. And that we pray our pastors…called to preach…be also able gift managers of the people. Your gift will be that plant in your soul, which sprang up strongest when the living waters came. That coal which glows first and hottest, when the winds of Pentecost blow. A song…a painting…undue kindness…compassionate visits. Whatever your gift; pray find it, and employ it in this glorious gospel. You have the gift of life for but a moment. It comes with sight, sound, touch and reasoning. And in our time, technology is at your very fingertips…to reach even beyond your small place. You have thousands of men’s lives…their lifetime of work…at your touch-screen beckon call…in the palm of your hand.
Our Lord has given you your gift. Then, he has given you and your gift, to your village, in your time. This, because he so loved the world. Yet he healed not all of the blind…not every deaf and lunatic. He walked past many at the Siloam pool, to reach the one. Perhaps their gift to us, is that we never grow so numb, as to forget our gifts. Like the poor; so too are the palsied and retarded, with us always. When such a one crosses your path, you are nearer to God than you know.
How rightly then, are we called servants. Not just in ministry to our Lord on Sunday and Wednesday. For then, like the Dead Sea with no outlet, we do but stink the land. But servants to our generation, by the will of God. Servants to our small place…in our brief time.
Study your gift as a scientist; whatever it be, allowing our Lord to tenderly groom it. Because we must tell our small place skillfully, about the love of God, and the redemption of Calvary.
Declare his glory among the heathen, his wonders among all people.
Make your gift ready. We are blessed beyond measure to even be included, and enlisted in, this 2,000 year telling of salvation. Pray give it your best shot. Professionally…artistically…intelligently…and forcefully. Because at no time before us has it been truer said, that to whom much is given, much is required.
Let the slothful stir themselves, and the frivolous be still. Let the sleepers awake…the eaters learn to tame the beast…and the broken in spirit, rise back up. This is our generation…our time…our only time. And lo, our time is short, and our message vital, to our own small place.
Against all challenges then…against every enemy and distraction…quietly hone your gift and unleash it. Serve, you servant of the Lord; what more have we to give him? You do hail from that great city Jerusalem; and now you are in the uttermost part of the earth. And now, is your time.
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