Day 053: Producing Good

There are those who sow their own things and produce more things, and there are those who gather but have less.  Proverbs 11:23

This proverb reminds me of Jesus' parable of the talents, for the lesson in the parable was about putting the talents to good use.  Both speak to me about how we should grow in our faith.

God gives us so many things in our lives.  Those things come in the form of material things and wealth.  Others, though, come in the form of our abilities, our talents.  Whatever they are, though, we have an obligation to put them to some form of use.  That's where faith comes in.

On the one hand, we could just hide the gifts that we have from God, but, just as the parable shows, that will just leave us with less.  If we aren't putting any of what we have to good use, we are turning ourselves away from avenues that could connect us with more people in the world.  We could be turning ourselves away from many who want to hear the Gospel but can't just because of our selfishness.

On the other hand, we can put our gifts to good use, for God.  Of course, at first, it might be scary.  Sometimes that means investing our gifts into things that may or may not be successful.  It is always difficult to make an investment of any kind.  However, God's grace is there just for this reason.  God wants to help us, to make us successful, when we bring our offerings to God.  God the provider, is all loving and will help us in our endeavors.  All we need to do is to make the first step in the right direction.  Allow for this Lent to be a time for bringing your offerings to God, so that God can make them grow into greater things than we could ever have imagined.

Day 018: Fruits

"Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for a tree is known by its fruit.  Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things?  For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.  A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things."  Matthew 12:33-35

Jesus calls us to do many things.  He calls us to go out and preach, bring more people to God, baptize the outsiders, donate, pray, fast, give alms, support the poor, and many other things.  I know that all of this sounds too overbearing.  But, at the same time, I find that Jesus gives us good advice, even if it sounds like an admonishment at first.

Imagine a machine designed to make automatic phone calls.  It can greet you and direct you to the services it needs to, but once you start asking for it to talk to you, it can only say, "I'm sorry, may you please repeat that," or, "I didn't understand. What would you like?"

Is that how we are going to be in the face of Jesus?  We need to be prepared.  Think about a fruit.  An apple comes from a tree.  How much larger is the tree than the apple?  The tree has to prepare so much just to bear one apple.  It has to form a trunk so it can protect itself, it needs to grow tall so it can get enough sunlight, it needs leaves to sustain it, and then it makes flowers so that they can attract pollinators to help the process of making an apple.  Couple that with the many years it takes for a tree to even consider bearing fruit and you have a lot of effort - a lot of preparation.

So, what are we to do?  Can we even bear fruit without preparation?  Most certainly not.  Can we prepare?  We most definitely can.  We have so many resources around us, and if you are reading this, you probably have access to the entire internet, which has even more resources than you could even imagine.  Take some time to prepare.  Prepare by reading the Bible.  Prepare by consulting spiritual leaders or friends.  Prepare by meditating and praying.  Prepare by practicing the fasts.  Prepare by trying to make new friends.  Prepare by learning about other people.  God will help us with our preparations, but we have to be willing to take on the challenge.