Matthew 25:14–18 ‘Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey.’ (vv14–15)
The ascended Jesus has left His disciples His riches. How shall we invest these? There’s a balance between focussing on God and being distracted by all that life involves. Learning to lean into God’s purpose to avoid distraction is the art of effective Christian living. Like Israel, which means ‘struggling with God’, once delivered from the tyranny of Sin, we find ourselves in a wilderness and needing to establish boundaries to make sense of life.
Sadly, our first stop is never the promised land. It can take many years to develop the necessary skills to address distraction and learn how best to invest God’s rich deposit seeded within each of us. Distractions take many forms, many themselves apparently good. The man who buried his silver was not intentionally evil, simply risk averse ahead of his master’s return.
Investing our energies in attempts to avert future disaster is not the kingdom way, as a simple reading of Scripture reveals. The wilderness also has its dangers, poisonous snakes to intensify our sense of insecurity and confusion. Yet, in every instance we have One to whom we can look for safety, even in the worst of trouble.
Amazingly God can be found even in suffering, as the wandering Israelites discovered. Responding to God will always demand courage and the consequences of our choices often cannot be known. The Chinese word for crisis is ‘Wei-Ji’ meaning danger and opportunity. It is indeed a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of God (Heb. 10:31).
SCRIPTURE TO CONSIDER:
Num. 21:4–9; Ps. 103:1–12; John 3:10–21; Heb. 10:32–39
AN ACTION TO TAKE:
What are the distractions that threaten to derail your discipleship journey?
How might you confront these and reboot that walk of faith?
A PRAYER TO MAKE:
‘Lord, every day is holy to You. May I turn and discover that the joy of the Lord is my strength, Amen.’ (Neh. 8:10)
Photo by Guillaume Bolduc on Unsplash; Photo by Guillaume Bolduc on Unsplash
