Triflingly

There are words that stick with you. There are things that are said at significant moments in your life that you will most likely never shake. There are ideas and concepts that, though maybe said quickly, nevertheless become a part of you. Because that's true, I often struggle over just the right way to say something in a sermon or a lesson—because, by God's grace, something I say might just stick with someone in the group!

One thing that has stuck with me is something my Bishop said at my ordination. Actually, it's something he said that was something John Wesley said centuries ago. (See, words have a lasting impact!) One of the charges given to ordinands by Wesley was (and continues to be) to "never be triflingly employed."

A "trifle" is defined as something that is unimportant or inconsequential or inessential. That's a definition that's easy enough to understand...until you try to put it into practice in a church. I've learned over the last twenty years that what some folks think is inconsequential means a whole lot to someone else. I constantly have to come back to prayer and trust God to lead me to work and events and activity that is important.

There are times when I feel as if I have accomplished nothing in a particular day, and then later (sometimes years later) someone will comment on my presence, something I said or did...and it surprises me and reminds me yet again of how God uses sometimes things we think are nothing for his own purposes. Perhaps that's why Paul describes us as clay jars that contain a treasure. A clay jar doesn't seem to be anything outstanding or special, but yet when placed in the hands of God, it can become something amazingly useful. It can contain a treasure.

I'm not saying any of this to build myself up, but to remind us all that what you do, the seemingly small things you do, the things maybe no one else knows about are very often the things that will last, the things that other people will remember. When we place our lives in the hands of God and allow him to use us, I'm not sure there is ever anything that is trifling. God can use it all. A mother who takes the time to color with her daughter...a friend who takes the time to listen to that story one more time...a neighbor who picks up a pizza for a single mother on the block...a homeowner who is kind to a telemarketer. Nothing goes unused in the economy of God's kingdom.

Perhaps the only time we are triflingly employed is when we refuse to allow God to use us.

Comments

  1. I believe the reference is to a broke jar. That's right a CRACK POT. Now that sounds more like who I am in my self, but it is through those cracks that God's glory shines through!

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