There’s a line from a hymn that will get stuck in my head with some frequency. It’s stanza 4 of “Hark the Voice of Jesus Crying.” It goes like this.
Let none hear you idly saying,
“There is nothing I can do,”
While the multitudes are dying
And the Master calls for you.
The thrust of this is that there is always work to do. Nobody can honestly say there is no work to do. People are dying out there, physically and spiritually. There is plenty to do.
Yet, lately, an inverse of this has been haunting me.
The multitudes dying is not inspiration for me. It is the very reality that makes me feel like there is nothing I can do.
I’m not standing around idly saying there’s nothing I can do. I’m quite busy doing lots of things. As the end of the stanza says, the Master has given me many tasks and vocations and there’s never a shortage of time and energy that is being asked of me.
But sometimes all of that doing feels like nothing. Sometimes I will put in an 8, 10, 12, occasionally 14-hour day and reach the end feeling frustrated, like everything is fruitless. And I wonder, is this what I’m supposed to be doing?
And then, I am reminded of what “the tasks He gives” me truly are in God’s garden kingdom. The tasks of planting seeds and tilling soil. The tasks of watering those seeds and pulling weeds. (I’ve been working with the parable of the sower quite a bit in my second book.)
And I am reminded that it is God’s task to grow those seeds.
I am reminded when a seed I planted five years ago shows up at my door, growing. A seed that had opportunity to be planted because someone was dying.
I am reminded when I visit a plant in desperate need of some water because the threat of death is drying it out, and after a few minutes soaking in God’s promises, it blossoms in front of my eyes.
Somehow, when I feel like there is nothing I can do, God is doing all sorts of things, giving growth all around me in His garden kingdom.
And that growth fills me with wonder, wonder and curiosity at what God is growing that I just cannot see quite yet.
Be Curious. Ask Questions.
Andy