Saturday 21 July 2012

Leftover Parts

Written by John Grant

 
How can we hear God’s voice speaking into our lives? Take this lesson.

“But who am I and who are my people that we should be able to offer as generously as this? For all things come from You, and from Your hand we have given You.” 1 Chronicles 29:24

When my bride looked at me and said, “The toilet is broken,” I turned to her and said, “Do I look like Joe the Plumber?” Then she reminded me how much plumbers charge on weekends so I thought I should at least take a look. After all, it might just be a broken flap and I have replaced those before.

No, it wasn’t that. The whole flush valve was broken. I have never fixed one of those before. But, I thought, why not give it a try. So, I went to the local “fix it depot” and after staring at the different choices picked the one that most looked like the one in my tank.


I grabbed a wrench. After all aren’t you supposed to use a wrench for any plumbing job? But, no, the instructions didn’t call for a wrench. Step by step, I followed the pictures and read the instructions, once I found the ones in English. I meticulously followed each step and finally I was finished. I turned on the water and everything seemed to work reasonable well.

As I was cleaning up, I found one left over part. I matched it up with the pictures and found out that it was a “cone gasket.” Then I had to find out where it went and of course, it required a complete removal and reassembly. I kept wondering if we could get along without it. But no, I could only put my stamp of approval on the job if I knew I had used everything that came in the box.

Life is like that. God has given to each of us the ability to so much with the gifts, talents and resources He has given to us and He expects us to use each for His glory and to fulfill the mission he uniquely created us to do.

Are you fully engaged or are you copping out? Are you playing around or are you totally into it? Are you fully engaged in every aspect of your relationship to Jesus? God’s engagement with each of us is 100%. God is constant the same yesterday, today and forever which means that God’s engagement with us is not up one day and down the next. There is nowhere in your life that God is not totally engaged with you. The highest mountain or the lowest valley, the coldest arctic or the hottest desert–God is there before you and behind you!

Question: Are you engaged with God? If you want to be, it means giving Him back everything He has given to us, with no parts left out or left over.

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