acrobat
I took my wife and boys to the Shriner Circus last Thursday. What is a Shriner anyway and why do they wear those hats? And what is a Grand Potentate? Wierd stuff, but the circus was fun none-the-less. At one point during the show, they had acrobats in all three rings. The center ring had a girl on this huge hoola-hoop looking ring hanging from the ceiling. She was swinging and doing all kinds of twists and stuff. The two outside rings each had 2 huge ribbons hanging from a pulley sytem for a guy to hang on to and be hoisted into the air to do all sorts of acrobatic tricks. One of the guys’ pully system apparently was not working right. They would pull him up into the air and then have to let him down. He never got to do any tricks and eventually they just gave up and he put on his jacket and stood and watched the others.
This is what amazed me: It hit me after a while that I was focused on this guy who wasn’t doing anything. Here were these two amazing athletes in the other rings doing some incredible feats of strength and agility and I was drawn to watch the guy who was just standing there. And I was focused on wondering what went wrong. When that hit me, I began to look around the arena and noticed that a large majority of the crowd was doing the same thing I was, looking at the guy whose stuff got messed up.
How much is that like the kingdom of God? All over the world God is doing amazing things in and through people. People are giving their all to serve the Lord and doing amazing things for Him and because of Him. But it seems that all the focus goes to those who are messing it up or aren’t doing anything, just standing there. And it steals glory from God. All eyes go to them. All the talk is about them and wondering “what went wrong?” We see it all the time. God is moving all over and one minister falls into immorality and the focus and talk is all about this “fake.” We hear it from people we share the gospel with. They say “I know Christians and they are no different than I am. Why do I need Jesus?” They are basically saying “I know christians who are standing there doing nothing.” And their focus is upon them.
So that challenges me to make sure I am not just standing watching the show, but I am being diligent to let my good works shine like a city on a hill to draw attention to the One who is really putting on a show worth watching! Hope you will too. Today matters, so matter today!
March 3rd, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Good Eye! It is the truth…All around us God is trying to teach us lessons, but we are too busy with the distractions. This one seemed like a good lesson. I wonder how many other Christians that were there got it? We should try to look for God’s message in everything, and this goes to prove – even in fun.