November 30, 2018

I am sometimes conflicted about the parable of the talents in Matthew 25 - until today. 

You know the one - the parable where the master went on a journey and left servants with different numbers of coins/talents. Two of the servants doubled what had been given to them. The third buried his talents until the master returned, and didn’t do anything with them. The master was very angry with the last servant - and threw him out of the kingdom. 

There have been times when I’ve thought that the reaction of the master was extreme - after all, the servant at least gave back the original talent! But when you think of this parable in the context of the talents/gifts/abilities that God has given us, and what we are doing with them, it changes everything. 

One theme that is repeatedly going through my mind since my cancer returned is, what we do for ourselves on this earth is worthless. You would never know it by the time we invest in US - our clothes, our homes, our interests. But what we do with the gifts and abilities that God gives us - for His Kingdom - is the eternal measure of a life that is well-lived. That may only make sense if you are facing your own mortality (which we all are - we just don’t think about it). But it is so crucial to living our BEST lives!

We are so backwards in our perspective! We worry and strive and try so hard to be successful, wealthy, trendy, well-liked - and none of that will matter when this very short life on earth is over!! 

God gives us gifts and abilities, not so we can win “most likely to succeed” here on earth, but so we can make KINGDOM-MINDED INVESTMENTS that will change the future of those around us. Investments of time, investments financially, investments of our hearts in the things that God places there for us to pursue. All of those things are the talents that God will measure some day - how have we used them?

“So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.” 2 Corinthians‬ ‭4:18‬ ‭NLT‬‬