On being a Sloth

I am not sure if this is an endearing quality or not, probably not after sixteen or seventeen years, but my husband has a tendency to repeat a story, telling it as if he hasn’t already told me. I used to interrupt and provide the ending, but now I listen as he tells me (for the umpteenth time). He gets so much delight in the telling, and I don’t want to spoil that!

Perhaps I am slowly turning into my husband, but I am also repeating stories! This morning I was reading an e-zine, an on line magazine written by Christian ladies. One of the articles that caught my interest was one in a series about the seven deadly sins, not in this case Celtic football clubs back line of defenders!) Today was the turn of sloth.

The emphasis of the article wasn’t about pure laziness or anything, but how it related to our walk of faith. Wikipedia defines sloth as “spiritual or emotional apathy, neglecting what God has spoken, and being physically and emotionally inactive”. The lady who wrote the article defined it as “the failure to utilize ones talents and gifts”. I am not even going to pretend that I can make the excuse that I don’t know what my talents and gifts are. I don’t always put myself in an environment where I can put them to use. Our church is involved in a coffee shop/chat/fellowship event called “Catalyst”, so I headed down to see if there was something I could contribute.

I am not at my most comfortable talking to people I don’t know, but that wasn’t required of me. I fell into conversation with a lady I met there before. After half an hour or so, we stopped talking and my friend looked at me and said, “We’ve had this conversation before!”

How many months ago? Two, possibly three months the conversation had turned to gift and talents, and the things that we could be doing to utilize them. Neither of us are “utilizers”. We know what the gifts are, and can see areas where we can put those gifts into action. But, sadly, that’s where it all stops…at the planning stage. Part of it is that we are not entirely convinced that we can do what we think we can do. What if it all goes belly-up and we are left with egg on our faces?

I was reading about faith this morning – Hebrews 11 faith – that marvellous line up of faith heroes (and heroines!). “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” We may heave learned the verse off by heart, but I living it is a little more challenging. There are no foolproof guarantees that the things we could be doing to utilize our gifts and talents will not go belly-up. But there again, we won’t know until we try it.

I think we both tried to take another step forward – to make ourselves accountable to each other to take that next step. We didn’t really succeed. Neither of us would just say to the other “Let’s go for it and see what happens!” I guess that makes the two of us sloths.

Catalysts cause changes to happen. I rather think this conversation has caused a tiny change in me to happen. I don’t want to be a sloth. I desperately want to utilize the gifts and talents I have. I want to do that much more that I want to avoid egg on my face! We are stepping forward…just a millimetre!

X Marks the Spot

Last night I joined with the prayer pastors to pray for the street pastors who were out last night. I had been preparing the word I was supposed to bring on Sunday. I hadn’t got to a hard bit or anything and things were chugging along quite nicely, but I thought that maybe being in the presence of God corporately I would get a deeper insight. I also thought that a friend of ours who we support in prayer was going to be out last night, but she wasn’t.

We were a very quiet bunch – not quiet as in long periods of silence or anything, but quiet spoken. Even tilting my good ear in their direction was not helping. I found it difficult to say my “Amen”s because I wasn’t sure what I was agreeing to, although I am sure that it was good stuff.

My tintitus, the ringing in my ears, seemed particularly loud as it does at the end of a school day. Perhaps under normal circumstances things would have not been so difficult.

There were times when we would stop praying about something and converse for a while about things we thought God was prompting us about. After a while the leader would say to someone, “Andrew, would you lead us in prayer on that?” It was always very specific, with a named individual. The trouble is that when I was the named individual I wasn’t sure exactly what I was leading people on. I have developed a habit I suppose. In those times of low volume, I will do the tilting of the head thing, but after a while, I just stop concentrating. I am content to let them talk and do not feel the need to join in. Maybe I get a glazed look that goes with it.

Last night there were two moments when it was “Mel, would you lead us in that?” The first time I had managed to follow the conversation – it was about asking God to send more workers to the field. I could do it. The second time, I was really caught out. It was getting on for midnight and I was drifting into sleep mode and I had stopped concentrating. Suddenly there was a “Mel, will you lead us in that?” I had no clue. I had not been listening big time! I didn’t even know enough to fluff it. So I had to ask them to repeat the information.

I am glad that God knows me well. Because the ears are not up to the job, He will often appeal to the other senses.

I will not claim to have anything other than a flash of a picture. I had the impression that I was seeing a field. The field was full of holes, so much so that it looked almost like a lunar landscape. I had the impression that I had asked a question about the hole. “Where have all these holes come from?” I had the impression of someone answering me, quite casually, “Oh, they were left behind by the people who dug up the talents they had buried.” It is a time for digging up buried talents!

If you happen to be a person that has buried your talent – find a spade and start digging! If you happen to be a person who hasn’t buried your talent – help someone that has to dig up theirs!