Touching Base! Part 16

Destined For The Dust Bin!

At one of our staff meetings recently we took yellow post-it notes and stuck them on everything in the room that was destined to become dust. As you can imagine, there were yellow post-it notes everywhere. I even had one stuck to my forehead.

Why would we do such an exercise? Because it led to a discussion about how we should live, what we should invest in, in light of the temporal things with which we are surrounded. Here were some of our comments:

• All this “stuff” is not an end in itself but a means to a greater end – Loving God passionately and serving others significantly. Sometimes in ministry (and relationships), we can become so busy that we feel we don’t have time for people. In fact, we can even find ourselves too busy to spend time cultivating our relationship with God. Instead of the temporal being a platform that propels us in to better loving God and serving people, it can actually have the reverse effect. We can become bound by it!

• Sometimes we can get quicker results with the temporal stuff than with the eternal priorities. Think about it: investing in people can be a slow, arduous, “not visible” process. However, checking off my to-do list for the day can produce results. All those check-marks bring a sense of accomplishment.

• We can quickly forget when working on a team that what is often more important than the task is the person on the team. We can push ahead to finish but not realize that the partnership in ministry is an awesome opportunity to invest in the person or person (s). We may celebrate a job well done, but sometimes what is more important is using the project to invest in the person!

• We live in a culture that is finding it increasingly difficult to know how to cultivate a rich relationship with God and people. For example, when people get together, it’s often not to pursue each other, to know each others’ hearts, or to wrestle with the issues of the soul. Sometimes people unknowingly hide behind “doing things” as opposed to getting to know the person. We do things “together” but remain distant from really knowing the other person’s heart.

Why not take time this week in your small group or mentoring relationship to post some post-it notes and have the conversation? It might help you refocus. It might help you see what is really important.

Luke 10:27

" 'Love the Lord your God (eternal) with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbour (eternal) as yourself (eternal).'"

Mark