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Trying the Joke Again - Ed Hurst - 01-07-2022
I once tried to enunciate through humor a moral principle on this forum and it fell flat. I think my approach was faulty, so let me try again...
The whole point of humility is that you realize you are easily replaced, but that the work you do for the Kingdom is what's critical. In Scripture, there is a fundamental recognition of roles as far more important than the people who fill them. Thus, very often in the Old Testament, someone's "name" is actually a title, not a personal moniker. The idea is that the role shapes you, that you are morally obliged to rise to the occasion, as it were.
We are fungible as individuals. It would be very easy for God to get someone else to fulfill our roles, and most certainly He could find folks better qualified. We should never lose sight of that. But for whatever reason, He chose us and here we are.
Do you sense that the roles we fill in His Kingdom at this time are critical for God's plans? "We hold this treasure in clay jars..." He could do it without us, but for whatever reasons, He has chosen to use us. This is the point at which we joke that He must not have much to work with. He tends to favor the idiots who are available over the experts who think they have better things to do. And maybe they do, but the point is that when He wants to do great miracles, the primary qualification is that you don't filter too much. (That's how Satan got into trouble.)
The original joke I tried to make is that we end up in a sort of "elite" position, while knowing how ludicrous it is that anyone would think we were elite type folks. This is how we come to the place where we would rather folks forget us individually and remember what God did with us. What a privilege it is to be involved in something for which we know ourselves to be ill-qualified in human terms.
In that sense, we hold an elite place without being actually elite.
RE: Trying the Joke Again - jaybreak - 01-09-2022
I've got plenty of limitations and weaknesses, although that might be my imposter syndrome speaking. Either way, I'm glad there's something I can do, however minor and imperfect (in the world's eyes) it is.
RE: Trying the Joke Again - Benjamin - 01-11-2022
As I was reading and processing each sentence and paragraph, my brain was jumping ahead to your closing sentence before I actually read it. "In that sense, we hold an elite place without being actually elite."
I'm reminded of a catch-phrase or motto I've heard from one of those fire-arms training places. "Any gun will do, if you will do." Replacing "gun" with "tool"... It's not that another tool might not be "better qualified" to fill the role, but that the "tool at hand" is the one nearby and available, waiting on the Master to pick it up for His purpose, to bring about His glory.
If the claw-hammer is the tool at hand, when you find yourself in the garden or out by the mailbox trying to plant some bulbs, and the fancy bulb planter is back in the house/shed/garage... you just might decide to plant those bulbs with a claw hammer.
The tulips might be even more beautiful/healthy when planted that way. Who knows? (Or you might go get the bulb planter... God did chase Jonah down to deliver the message to Nineveh, even though Jonah wasn't particularly "available".)Like a lot of people, I'm a sucker for a cool or clever tool. But owning that tool doesn't make me a master in the craft to which it's associated. Rather, being a master in that craft will likely allow me to take even unqualified tools and make something truly remarkable.
Those are some of the word-pictures that come to mind from reading your post.
Anyone talked to Iain lately?
RE: Trying the Joke Again - jaybreak - 01-11-2022
I haven't heard from Iain, lately, no. I've only talked to him on the forum here.