Beautiful Things

Get ready for a multimedia post!  I have so many wonderful things to share with you.  This first:

It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent
enterprise that is God's work. Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of
saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
 
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an
opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master
builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.

These beautiful words were written by a Catholic Bishop based an a prayer of Oscar Romero's.  If you do not know who Oscar Romero is you should Google him right now.  He was a social advocate for the poor of El Salvador during rough times until he was murdered during Mass.  This weekend he is being Beatified in San Salvador so I thought it appropriate to share this with you.  I read these words almost every day to remind myself of what God has, and has not called me to.  I am a worker and not a master builder, and as the prayer says, there is a freedom in that.  I am absolutely in love with the kids I get to serve every day, but often feel so limited in what I can do for them, but it is not my job to parent them nor try to make sure they are safe at all times.

It is not our job to make sure people come to know Christ.  It is however our job to share the gospel with those around us.  If we are members of Christ's body and call ourselves Christians, we have to have the faith to plant seeds that we may never see grow into plants, or water plants that we may never get to see bear fruit.  I have been feeling so convicted with this lately.  I had the opportunity to spend last week translating and sharing the gospel in San Salvador, and the majority of those people I may never see again.  Why don't I share the gospel more?  The truth is that I am not a gifted evangelist, but that not what God asks of us either.  He doesn't say "Those with a strong evangelism gift spread my message and the rest of you can just hangout."  No, he uses the weak and the incapable to do amazing things!  He chose Moses, who had a speech impediment, to liberate the Israelites.  He chose Saul, who was murdering Christians, to become one of the most successful missionaries ever and to write most of the New Testament.  So who am I to say no?  I should feel uncomfortable.  The world hated Jesus first, so it really doesn't matter if people hate me for what I believe, I am in good company.

Feeling weak and convicted?  Listen to this and rest in the Lord's love and grace.

Standing in awe of the power of the gospel,

Sigourney