Demonstrations

The past four days at church we've had the privilege of hosting First Century Ministries. They are a married couple who travels America in their motor home teaching about God's love. Wade does pottery, blacksmithing, carving and painting. What was meaningful to me was how they had a genuine love for our congregation, even though they've probably been to hundreds of churches. Tonight, Wade and Jennifer did something God inspired and brand new to them. Make a cross.

Yesterday he and a couple guys from the church chopped down a tree from our lot and did a lot of prep work to make the presentation possible. It's always amazing to me how much preparation it takes to create a simple thing like a cross. Wade had to cut the right size of tree (it was probably 24 inches around), cut the vertical and horizontal beams correctly, make a stand for the huge trunk, and whittle the sides of the tree's base to fit the stand. This was all before the people came to watch him hack at the centers of the beams, fit them together, then nail huge 10 inch nails into the center. That second part, only took about 30 minutes. The prep work: 6 hours.

How much preparation has God been doing to make us ready for a short demonstration? We get less than 100 years (typically) to impact our world. And there are all those years of prep work. Childhood, school, college, family, career, friends- all these things that work on us and with us to train us to do something great for God. Are you willing (am I willing?) to take the next step that God has for us to be great for Him?

The season is changing, and so do we. Sometimes we are in that season of hacking and filing and pounding. Sometimes we are in the season of fitting and molding. And on rare occasions we get to do a great thing for God. I'm sure God uses us more than we know(and it's a good thing too, or else we'd think we had something to do with it!). But there are those times that we do realize God has called us to step out in faith, and we need to trust that He's done the preparation. All He asks from us is simply stand and be surrendered. Like that tree we saw tonight, standing with it's arms out in demonstration of God's greatest gift.