GIFTING: What’s In Your Hand?

Twenty-six-year-old Tiffany Johnson moved from Minnesota to Denver to work with Youth With a Mission (YWAM). There she met twenty-three-year-old Philip Crouse, and they both became leaders at the ministry where their mission is "to know Christ and make Him known." Several years ago, they were both shot dead at their dormitory by an unknown assailant. Two other victims are still fighting for their lives.

Twelve hours later and some seventy miles away, four more people were also gunned down in the parking lot of New Life Church as they exited the morning service. Two of the victims died, Stephanie and Rachael Works, ages 18 and 16.  It happened in my hometown of Colorado Springs.

I live just a few miles away from New Life Church looking out over the mountains covered with fresh snow. Why did God let this happen?  They knew Him. They were two young people giving their lives to missions, and two teenage sisters attending church on Sunday morning.

Like you, there are lots of things I don't understand and can't explain about why these kinds of things happen. What I do know, however, is that all of us only have today. None of us knows if we have tomorrow, and none of us is guaranteed to live to a ripe old age. But if we're in Christ, we have eternity, and that's something no gunman anywhere can take away from us.

I also know that because tomorrow is not a sure thing, we need to do something now! While we have today, we need to be busy doing what God has called us to do, big or small.  When these four people met Jesus today, it wasn't their money or fame or earthly achievements they could lay at His feet. He was only interested in what they'd done for Him.

I have felt the call of God on my life since I was a child. In those days, I told myself I was too young to make a significant difference. Because I believed that, it became true. I didn't accomplish nearly as much as I was created to do. As a result, my surrender and efforts to work for the kingdom happened much later than they should have. It cost the kingdom opportunities to change lives, and it cost me jewels and crowns I will never be able to recapture to lay at Jesus' feet.

I do have new ones I'm working feverishly on today, however. Sometimes I think I'm too old or too tied down or too under-qualified to complete God's work.  But I'm not going to let the same thing happen to me now as happened to me then.  I will never again be cheated out of opportunities and rewards for doing His bidding. I'll do what's right in front of me, and that's something I'll not allow any circumstance to change.

So how do we get busy today? What do we do? What do we spend our efforts on?

Moses asked similar questions and God answered him in Exodus 4:2: "What is that in your hand?" To Moses it was a rod, and he used it to display God's miracles. To a woman in the New Testament named Dorcas (also called Tabitha), it was a needle and thread (Acts 9). She used what she held in the port town of Joppa to sew clothing for widows whose husbands had been lost at sea. She spent every day she had with what Scripture describes as, "full of good works and charitable deeds which she did" (9:36).

But her life was cut short, too.  It appeared that she'd sewed her last dress, finished her final opportunity to do God's work, but such was not the case. Peter prayed for her in a room surrounded by women whose lives Dorcas had touched, and Dorcas was raised back to life.

We don't know how much longer she lived, and nothing more is written about her life. What we can surmise is that she got busy doing again, capitalizing on the opportunity for the moment with the thing she held in her hand.  And she did that for however long she had left before she stood at last and forever before Christ. To her, additional days were not the end but the means. Additional days meant additional opportunities to make an additional differences for eternity.

Jesus' own words portend of His departure and the expediency of being busy now: <em>"I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when on one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world" </em>(Jn. 9:4-5). 

I know there are lots of other things that need discussion surrounding the tragedies of this morning here in Colorado. Many other questions will be raised and many other issues will be discussed, but the event has spoken loudest to me about today's opportunities and staying busy with kingdom work assigned to each of us until our time is done and our night has come. Being a light <em>for</em> the world as long as we are <em>in</em> the world.

Somehow I think that if Tiffany, Philip, Stephanie and Rachael could speak to us now, they'd tell us the same thing. "Get busy with what's in your hand. Stay faithful, and we'll meet you here someday."

That's what helps me to make sense of the senseless tragedy of today.

We're all only passing through our time here on earth. Whether we get nine days or nine years or ninety years, we're still pilgrims on a short-term stay here.