Big Doors...

            Encouragement in the midst of frustration is often hard to find, and just as often even harder to accept. I’ll be honest the past several weeks my frustration level has been a little higher than usual. There are many reasons for that, which are really of little consequence to the point that I’m working towards, but I will share one reason as follows.

In my ministry God has been moving in HUGE ways, and we’ve seen students respond to the Spirit in worship and to God’s word in their lives, it’s been amazing. Through my prayer and preparations I’ve been led to do some pretty involved programming for our Wednesday night services, which is great! However, this is where the frustration comes in. I find my already small windows of time for accomplishing and delegating tasks needed for such heavy program requirements, closing in tighter and tighter. Which leads to the frustration of my position in being bi-vocational. This is not a good attitude to have, I don’t like it, and God has once again met me exactly where I am.

            This morning, the morning after a great and fun night of ministry I found myself arriving at my day job at 6:30 AM! I am not a morning person, in fact when my alarm went off at 5:00 AM the thought occurred to me that I had seen 5:00 AM from the “other side”, more often than not (that is, at this hour falling into bed, rather than climbing out of it.). Soon after arriving for my daily duties this morning, there I was behind a camera for a breakfast awards ceremony for a local charity. They gave some awards to people who had made their way through the various programs they offer after playing a short but very well produced video of the recipients telling their story. They then gave an award to one of their corporate sponsors who had been a pivotal partner in helping the charity throughout the past year. It was the production company that produced the videos they showed this morning along with a few television commercials and other marketing tools. A very well spoken gentleman graciously accepted the award, and during his remarks he stated how it was great to see charities doing their part in the world where so much tragedy and poverty is running rampant. He left us all with this quote. He said a wise man once told him “Big doors swing on the littlest hinges.”.

            Through the fogginess of an early morning with little sleep, and a less than great attitude about it, God hit me upside the head. Sometimes, whether it’s because of our own decisions, or whatever the cause may be, we feel that we are given a bad hand to play, or a miniscule amount of resources to accomplish a great task. But the truth is, God seems to have this amazing magnifying glass that takes even the mustard seed of faith, time, effort, resources and uses them for His glory, to accomplish things that seem completely disproportionate to what makes sense to us. He hangs a huge door on even the smallest hinge.

            Be encouraged today, sometimes it seems we can’t give enough, do enough, or be enough, but take a moment and put your heart in the right place, and let God take care of the rest.

Blessings,

Jeremiah