The Pencil

 A reporter once asked Mother Theresa about the secret to her success. Her response was not what the reporter expected. She reported that she started her day with prayer at 4:30 a.m. Then she told him she was just like a pencil. Here is her full response, "I don't claim anything of the work. It is all His work. I am like a little pencil in His hand., that is all. He does the thinking. He does the writing. The pencil has nothing to do with it. The pencil only has to be allowed to be used."

As followers of Jesus we are like pencils. We are just instruments in His hands. Vessels through whom He works through. It is not up to us to dream grandiose dreams of what we want to do. It is up to us to be available and to remain in the Master's hands. We let Him write His story and the role we play in that story. He plots the drama and we remain in His hands to write it out. 

There are many Christians who desire to play prominent roles. That is not our choice to make. He chooses the parts. We submit and are to remain faithful whether He uses us to do something significant, or whether He calls us to remain faithful in a more obscure role. We are all working together for the same purpose. To advance His kingdom and to glorify Him in the process. 

The reminder of the pencil alleviates the need for striving to get ahead and climb to the top. We are to submit. To surrender our will to His will and allow Him to write His plans through us. Yielding is not a posture that comes easy for many of us. We are doers, movers, and shakers. Yielding and submitting take us completely out of the driver's seat. We are passengers on this journey. Jesus is behind the wheel steering our lives and the end destination. 

The story of the pencil reminds me of what Jesus told His disciples in Matt 16:24. If we want to come after Him, we are called to deny ourselves, take up our cross and to follow Him. Each of those actions require submission. We don't always get to do what we want or even what we think is best. For instance, twice last week Brenda and I were out eating. Each time she looked at me and said, "I think God wants us to buy those people's meal." Both times I had already thought the same thing. Now, I am not saying we are rich. Our finances get stretched like a rubber band sometimes. Nor am I saying we are poor. In one case, two additional people joined the party of four we were paying for. Brenda and I looked at each other and said it is only money. God can make up the difference. We high fived and told the waitress our plan. That is just a part of what denying yourself looks like. Recently, I cast vision for a project at the church requiring us to raise $15,000. I had saved my money for months. I get a weekly allowance and I scrimped and saved. I am not saying it was a great deal of money to most, but it was to me. God prompted me to empty my wallet and to be the first to give to the project. 

Taking up the cross involves suffering. Most of us prefer to avoid suffering at all cost. Sometimes following Jesus leads us to suffering or to minister to the suffering like it did for Mother Theresa. Brothers and sisters we must not mind a little suffering when our own Savior suffered on the cross. 

Following Jesus could lead us anywhere. A little over a year ago He moved us to the Panhandle of Texas. Sometimes I catch myself thinking," I can't believe we live here. " Two years before we moved I got the sense that God was not only going to move us, but that He was going to move us to the Panhandle of Texas. The story is famous around here now, but I did not pursue this church. They contacted me. Someone sent my resume to them without ever telling me or asking my permission. In a phone interview with the search committee the last thing I told them was, "Don't ever contact me again unless you are convinced I am God's choice for your church." I did not hear from them again for five months. They did contact me to tell me I was their top candidate. Now you know the rest of the story. Being a pencil in the hand of God meant moving up north in the state of Texas to serve a church who experienced more hurt in the past ten years than any church I had ever heard of before. God chose to set Brenda and I in the middle of their pain to be pencils for God to write out a ministry of healing. 

I'm grateful for the lesson of the pencil. I hope you found it helpful. All we have to do is remain available to the Master and remain in His hands. He does the thinking and the writing. We are just vessels. 

The Fragrance of Worship

 I estimate that I have preached over 5,000 sermons. That means I've been in over 5,000 worship services as a preacher. I sat in many before I ever started preaching. If I were honest, I cannot say that really did worship in all of them. Some of them I prayed for direction for a message. Others I thought about the flow of worship and if it seemed the congregation was tracking. There were times when my mouth sang the words to songs, but my heart was somewhere else. There were occasions where my broken heart held me back from worship. 

There have been special worship encounters over the past three and a half decades. Times when I sang with such intensity and longing that I thought my heart would burst out of my chest. There have also been numerous private prayer encounters with the Lord when no one could see me get lost in the art of adoration. Some of my favorite worship encounters occurred in the prayer closet and not in a crowded sanctuary. 

I read about a worship encounter that was more intense than anything I have ever experienced. You can read about that encounter yourself in John 12:3. Jesus was invited to supper at Martha's and Mary's house. Lazarus was also in attendance fresh of his resurrection from the dead encounter with the Lord. Mary stole the show though. 

She took 16 ounces of very costly perfume. Instead squirting a few shots on herself to smell good for the dinner guests she anointed the feet of Jesus with it. She even went a step further. She bent over his feet and used her hair as a towel. What a sight that must have been. She had no regard for herself. She lavished love onto the feet of Jesus in a beautiful act of worship. Let your mind take in that scene. See her act of worship. Listen to the sounds of the others in the room. Don't forget to smell the fragrance of worship in the room. That aroma must have permeated the area letting others get in on the worship experience as well. 

Not everyone was pleased with the extravagant act of worship. That hypocrite Judas commented that the perfume could have been sold to help the poor. His real intentions were to embezzle the money as he done with other money entrusted to him as the treasurer. Some people are put off by sincere worship. David's wife Michael certainly was when David danced before the Lord bringing the ark of the covenant back to the capitol city. 

We are challenged to give God more worship. No matter what it costs us or how extravagant others might think it is. The only audience that matters in worship is God and Jesus. They are the audience. What people think is irrelevant. They should not be watching anyway, and wouldn't be if they were absorbed in adoring God themselves. We may not break expensive perfume out in worship, but the fragrance of our love should fill the room. The fragrance of worship is a sweet aroma to our Savior who deserves it. Let the fragrance saturate our prayer rooms and fill our places of worship. Because we have been forgiven much let us love and worship much.