Just a Bunch of Grass

 

There’s literally tons of grass rolled up and sitting in the field across from my house right now. I don’t have a job, a college education, or even a perfectly tidy house really. But I see grass and sky and cows and critters, all day long every day.

Yesterday morning I sat in bed early and read in Luke 19-

What had the servants done with the minas their master had given them to hang onto while he was away?

 

 

Remember the story?

The guy who had been given ten invested it and doubled what he had, the one who had been given five did the same. The master was happy and gave them even more to work with when he got back.

It was the guy who was afraid of failure and punishment, who wouldn’t do anything but hide his; he’s the one who got the scolding at the end.

 

 

Do we look at gifts from God sometimes like they are presents that are all for us?

It might be all I get in this life so I’d better hang on tight.

 

 

Or maybe we see that person who started life with the lower ACE score than we did, who has the ultra calm kids, the one who finishes all the things she sets out to and we know that try though we may, we’ll be never even have a day like that because our brain moves at the pace of a squirrel in a two lane highway and hers has some innate order built in.

She started life with ten minas and we feel lucky to still have even the one.

She has a few to spare if things go awry, but without my one I’m sunk.

 

 

But what if the gifts aren’t just presents to make us happy –

What if they were never meant to for us to hold on to at all?

 

 

What if gifts are like the minas were supposed to be- something to invest?

 

 

That the One who gave us the things in the first place, He knew what potential they had, what potential we had, when He decided who got what. Who is not interested in numbers, just in how well we want to know Him.

 

 

Forget who has what for a minute. Don’t we all have different gifts anyway?

 

 

I thought of the crowds of people wanting to hear Jesus talk for as long as possible, but they were in the middle of nowhere and people were getting hungry. There were only a few loaves of bread and some fish, but Jesus multiplied what was there by thousands.

 

 

If He can multiply a few loaves of bread into enough to feed thousands, what can He do with that field of grass out a window when it’s offered out for use?

 

 

We know it, investing takes some risk.

We know it so well it will freeze our gumption like it has over and over in the past.

But here’s the thing: He’s not afraid of risk.

 

 

What I’m learning risk doesn’t mean: plunging into every need we see in a desperate effort to save the entire world at once, trying to invest something we don’t even have.

We’re not creating something from nothing- that has always been God’s job.

 

It means that maybe blessings aren’t presents after all.

Gifts are our seed money.

The story from Luke 19, the fields of grass out my window, a camera and this blog, is me taking one little mina, and putting it out there for use. Yeah it’s not all perfect and the email subscriber button is still jacked up and the whole thing is a little terrifying.

But a lifetime of burying what I have underground for safekeeping isn’t the way to enjoy a single thing.

A little risk, and the thought of a smile on His face someday, I think that might be the way to do it.