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| The Land of Cockaigne by Pieter Bruegel |
We often think that the greatest reward God could give us
for our work is that we not have to work anymore. We have a "Big Rock
Candy Mountain" view of God's kingdom. But God’s kingdom isn’t the Land of
Cockaigne. The pattern we see again and again in Scripture is that those who
are faithful in a little are given much to be faithful in. You can see this in
a big way in the stories of Joseph and of Daniel in the Old Testament.
The same principle is at work in Jesus' parable of the talents (Matthew
25:14-30). God doesn't say, "You've been faithful in this little thing, so
let me take that away from you and let you retire and rest." Instead, he
says, "You've been faithful in this little thing; let me give you a big
thing. You've navigated this small challenge; let me give you a larger
challenge." This is what God's blessing looks like. It was the unfaithful
steward who had his responsibilities taken away; the faithful stewards were
given more responsibilities.
What does this mean for us? It means that in a culture typified by the question
“What is best for me?”, God's blessings are often regarded as curses. For
example, again and again the Bible calls children a blessing, but our culture
calls them a burden. How many moms do you know who regularly complain about
their children, treating them as problems rather than promises?
I’ve even seen this tendency in myself. For years, Providence
Church cruised along with somewhere between 150 and 180 members. Then over the
last two years, it’s like God has opened a floodgate, and we now have around 375
folks attending. Obviously, this has created some challenges for us. We’ve had
to go to two worship services. We’re having to rethink how we do church events
and book studies with more people. The deacons have found that planning an
event for 200 and planning an event for 350 are far more different in reality than
they look on paper.
In the midst of all this, when people have asked me how we
were planning on handling all the new folks, I adopted the habit of saying “Well,
it’s a good problem to have.” I meant it as an encouragement to be thankful,
but over the last few months I’ve consciously pulled back from that. It’s not a
problem to have at all. It’s a good blessing to have. It’s
certainly a challenge, but a challenge isn’t the same as a problem. Even in my
language I had adopted the habit of treating God’s blessing as something
undesirable.
God’s blessings don’t make your life easier; they make it
harder. More money means more responsibility. A promotion at work means more
responsibility. Children mean more responsibility. God’s blessings mean more work
for you. But God does this so that you can learn to trust more and more in His
power rather than your own, so that you can kill selfishness and pride and look
to others rather than yourself, and so that you can learn the lesson at the
heart of the Christian life: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks
in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1
Thessalonians 5:16-18).
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