Sparks of God's Glory

I am currently reading a biography about a man who was sucked into Stalin's gulag. The man and his fellow prisoners suffered terribly in a camp far above the Arctic Circle. It is a depressing story with the only glimmers of light being hopes for release that were agonizingly dragged out, only to be dashed in the end. The only release for nearly all of the prisoners came through death. The man was an atheist, as were all of the others he knew. Religion of any kind, or any hope for salvation, is missing in this darkness.

By contrast, Corrie ten Boom and her sister Betsie, who were also prisoners at the same time, but victims of a Nazi death camp, were devout Christians who managed to spread hope in that horrible place. Corrie said, "You may never know that Jesus is all you need, until Jesus is all you have."

And it came to me that we are all in the same situation as these prisoners.

We spread joy or pain in our own worlds to our family, friends, neighbors, and strangers by our behavior, by what we say and how we say it, by our actions--how we drive; the things we laugh at or cry over; what we do at school, at work, or in our neighborhood, for others or against them; the kindness, compassion, forgiveness, and generosity we show, especially to animals, children, and the elderly.

We spread God's love or our own lack of faith wherever we are when we share our fears and worries, our hurts and anger, or our trust in God and our belief in His love, light, and peace. If we believe this world is all there is or that God has a better place for us after death will--or should--make a difference in how we live, speak, and act.

"Again Jesus said, 'God's kingdom is like what happens when a farmer scatters seed in a field. The farmer sleeps at night and is up and around during the day. Yet the seeds keep sprouting and growing, and he doesn't understand how. It is the ground that makes the seeds sprout and grow into plants that produce grain. Then when the harvest season comes and the grain is ripe, the farmer cuts it with a sickle.' " Mark 4:26-29 (CEV)

We don't know what will happen or who will ultimately be influenced by us when we put God's truth into practice daily in our lives. "You may be the only Gospel others ever read." We are all sparks of God's perfect glory.

GIFTS AND TALENTS

"We have," St. Paul says, "different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully." (Romans 12: 6-8)

For years I looked at this list and said, that's nice, but I have none of those gifts, and went on.

The other day it occurred to me that in fact I have ALL of these gifts. And so do you! So do all of us.

Do you not have the gift of showing mercy? To your children when they mess up? Your spouse when they disappoint you? Your pets? To your friends? To other people's children? To stray animals? To strangers? Do you not sometimes yield the way to someone whose car cuts you off in traffic or someone who cuts in line in front of you in the supermarket? That's showing mercy to them, but Paul is asking you to do it cheerfully, gracefully, with a smile. If you have to, remember the times you may have done the same, or the times someone did it and you suddenly recognized the person as an old friend and how your attitude changed, or imagine they have a sick child they are trying to rush home to.

Do you not have the gift of leadership? At home? At work? Almost everyone has someone looking up to them or depending on them. Even homeless people may have someone they are bringing food to or showing the way to a soup kitchen or a shelter. Paul is just telling you to work hard at it. Don't do a half-hearted job of parenting or supervising others at work.

Do you not have the gift of contributing to the needs of others? Your family? Your neighbors? Your church? Charities helping people or animals, local or far away? Do so generously.

Do you not have the gift of encouraging? Of course you do. We all can encourage others as we go through life, whether they are family members, the new employee where we work, the tired clerk or waitress, the frightened stranger who is lost, the sad-faced customer, everyone we come in contact with.

Do you not have the gift of teaching? Of course you do. You don't need to be a professional teacher to teach. You teach your children, your friends or strangers when you tell them about a new shortcut to town, your employees at work, and anyone you tell about Jesus.

Do you not have the gift of serving? Of course you do. We all serve one another in one way or another. Whether it is in housework or yardwork at home or the services we perform on the job, we need to do it cheerfully and diligently.

"Ah," you say, "but what can you do with prophesying? I am not a prophet." Not in the Biblical sense of a prophet, perhaps, but we all have the ability to look at a neighbor's kid and we've all heard ourselves say something like, "that kid's going to wind up in jail or worse if he doesn't straighten out." Or even, "that gal's going to end up in a ditch if she keeps driving like that on icy roads." We prophesy how our own kids are going to turn out, how things on the job are going to work out, how things in our country or the world are going to succeed or fail. You may be in charge of planning for a group, a business, a school, a church, or a government. We have the gift of forecasting the future based on our knowledge and experience. Paul is asking you to use it in proportion to your faith in God. Take Him into account in your planning.

We all have all the gifts we need. Let the Holy Spirit guide you in their use. We may be the only Gospel our neighbors ever read.

CHOICES

We always have the choice to serve God where we are, or to run and serve Him elsewhere--or not.

If we allow ourselves to be guided by God's love, we may choose to stand and fight. But sometimes circumstances overwhelm us, and like any great general we have to learn when to sound retreat. To sacrifice is not always to lose.

Sometimes we must sacrifice one thing in order to obtain something better. The good general surveys the ground and looks for a better place to defend or attack from, and so a retreat may actually be an advance in disguise.

Allowing batters to walk in baseball counts in the statistics against a pitcher, but an effective baseball manager sometimes orders his pitcher to deliberately walk one batter so that he will be facing a weaker hitter, and any decent pitcher will often ignore his "strikes to balls ratio" statistic and deliberately throw a ball rather than a strike, hoping to get the batter to "chase after it" and strike himself out.

If we choose to stand firm on our ground and "fight the good fight," perhaps even to our death, whether that death is a result of our fighting or simply the natural end of our physical life, we must believe that we are where God wants us to be, doing what God wants us to do. Only then can we draw on His strength.

To give up one's life may not involve the sacrifice of our physical bodies, as in a war or other violent confrontation. It may be simply giving up our own dreams and hopes and yielding to the needs of someone else. That someone may be an elderly parent, or a child, a husband, or a wife suffering sickness or disabilities. Or it may be someone else entirely, someone who was even formerly a stranger, but who is now our friend or beloved. People give up their lives to care for animals, as well, or for the greater good of a number of people they will never even meet, but who they hope will benefit from their research or their labor.

If we choose to run away entirely from a situation, we may discover that we have taken our problems with us or encounter a completely new set of problems previously undreamed of. And yet, we may still choose to serve God in our new life.

Sometimes we may find that we cannot physically run from a place, whether that is a hospital bed or a jail cell, but we can still choose to serve God or not in our place. The mind and the spirit are free even if the body is not.

The same is true if we retreat or move on to something we hope will be better. The choice is always ours. We are always free to choose to serve God. Or not.

HELPING OTHERS
Before we can help others, we first have to SEE the need. If my neighbor falls in his house, I can't know he needs help. We would know nothing about Haiti's earthquake if the media didn't show us.

Secondly, we have to UNDERSTAND the need. If my neighbor manages to hobble out of his house and stands by the road waving his hand, I may think he's just saying hello. An earthquake is obvious, but the problems caused by desertification in Africa or deforestation in South America may not be.

Thirdly, we have to KNOW what to do and BE ABLE to do it. I can call 911 for my neighbor, but how to help people in the Philippines threatened by a volcano may be beyond my ability to do more than pray for them.

But if we CAN do something, it becomes our human responsibility to DO it whether it is for our neighbor or someone halfway across the planet.