Am I Indispensable?
In the Gospel of Luke's account of Jesus entering Jerusalem on a colt, 19.30-40, Jesus' disciples are praising God for all the miracles that they had seen. The phrases that Luke records are, "Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!", and "Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!" The Pharisees in the crowd wanted Jesus to rebuke His disciples for this praise. Jesus said that if they were to keep quiet that the stones would cry out. This is not the first time that stones are used as a possible stand in for people. John the Baptist in Matthew 3.7-9 warns the Israelites that they cannot depend on their lineage from Abraham as their salvation. John tells the people that God can raise up children for Abraham from "these stones." Even the Apostle Paul recognizes his own insignificance in relation to the unstoppable success of God's kingdom, 1 Cor. 3.7. This is not to say the God doesn't want us to do all the work we are doing or even more than we are doing. Also God is pleased when we sacrifice our own agenda for His; but will anyone's presence or absence keep God from accomplishing all He has in mind for the world. No.
Everything that I am doing could be, if it were God's will, replaced by 10 hard working souls, 20 hardworking souls, oh, that's right; a rock.
1 Peter 5.5 God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
posted by james @ 1/23/2006 11:55:00 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Well that's a good point for all of us today as we think of ourselves an integral part of the success of our companies, our home lives and our church. But to then realize - with certainty - that God doesn't need us, that it's the other way around - is humbling. Rocks, indeed. And I often catch myself smugly thinking, "Oh how could this company of mine function without my obvious skills" when we have all seen it first hand; an employee leaves for greener pastures, and the company miraculously survives. Well, in even more certain terms, the church would survive without my small contribution. And I hope that I keep that in mind that the glory always belongs to God and that we will forever be catching up to His Son.
Even as I finished posting this I wondered if I was painting God as somehow uncaring or unconcerned about how I receive His message of salvation. It is hard to communicate both how special each individual is in God's eyes (building us up) and realize as God points out to Elijah in 1st Kings 19.14-18, that sometimes I needlessly put pressure on myself or others thinking "how crucial" I or they must be to a particular cause.
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