“…Be ready in season and out of season…” II Tim. 4:2
Ours is not to decide when we will be most useful to God. Or where we will be most useful. Or how we will be most useful. As if we trafficked in that kind of omniscience in the first place. Ours is simply to “be ready.” The word Paul uses here was used in Greek literature to describe a soldier “staying at his post." The soldier of Christ is to stay at his post, to simply remain doggedly faithful to the present task at hand. And then Paul adds the intriguing phrase “in season and out of season." This probably has the thought of “when it is convenient and when it is inconvenient." But it also points out a critical truth concerning usefulness and ministry.
Our highest and most significant calling is not the ability to recognize the time of our usefulness; but simply to remain doggedly faithful to our higher calling of simply showing up. Showing up to love God with all of our being. Showing up to love the brethren on good days and bad. Showing up to reach out into a needy, broken world with the love of Christ regardless of how we think they will respond. Showing up for daily, routine, unglamorous faithfulness in our homes and at our jobs. And it is in the pathway of simple, daily, hourly showing up that God uses His people in ways far beyond anything they might imagine. Oswald Chambers put it so well, “It is inbred in us that we have to do exceptional things for God: but we have not. We have to be exceptional in the ordinary things…” In other words, just show up!
The poverty-stricken widow just showed up. She faithfully deposited her meager two mites and went her way, completely oblivious to the stage she was actually on. In her wildest imaginations could she ever have imagined that her Lord would talk behind her back and say to His disciples, “Truly I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all; for all these out of their abundance have put in offerings for God, but she out of her poverty put in all the livelihood that she had.” (Lk. 21:1-4)? Could she possibly have known that her showing up would one day be recorded in scripture and thereby influence countless saints for the next 2,000 years?
The publican just showed up. In brokenness and humility, he prayed, "God, be merciful to me, the sinner." (Lk. 18:13) Could he have possibly known the ways God would use his showing up in deep brokenness and prayer over the next 2,000 years? Of course not. And neither do any of us know how God is going to use our most common, seemingly insignificant steps to love Him and bless others. What we do know is that God delights to use His people when they least expect it. When they will never see the fruit of their faithfulness in this lifetime. When all they do is show up. Show up with no higher agenda than simply to play their best - wherever that may be - for an audience of One.
Someone has well said, “Satan doesn’t care what we do for God, as long as we do it tomorrow”. So, so true. And one of his most deceptive strategies is to get us focusing on our usefulness in the future so as to distract us from our availability in the now. That way myriads of opportunities for present impact are forfeited while we concern ourselves with how God is going to use us next. Fact is, none of us really has the foggiest idea how God is going to use us next. Far, far better to stay dialed in to this day, this hour, this moment. It is, after all, the only time frame we are guaranteed.
Flashpoint: Never underestimate the awesome power of just showing up. God doesn’t.
