God can still use lazy, spiteful people

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Matt 6: 21.

This was the verse that the pastor was talking about on Sunday morning. He was saying that the things that we treasure can dictate the way we live out our lives. How that often we need to let go of things that have a grip on us.

For his example he talked about his Day-timer. And how that he didn’t realise how much he used and relied on it until he misplaced it. He realised that when he had his day-timer so much of his life was dictated by what it said. If people came to visit him he wouldn’t be able to meet them because maybe he had a meeting or a lunch appointment. Having the Day-timer meant that he had taken the ability to be flexible out of his life.

Yet he didn’t give up on looking for this day-timer. He visited the following places asking for his AWOL Day-timer: all the coffee shops he had been to over the past weeks, the grocery stores, his barber shop (twice), houses that he had visited and the list went on. In the end he went and bought a replacement, as he needed a basic one to remind him of meetings etc.

It was at this point that my whole body started to sweat; I felt sick; I went red in the face and slowly slouched down in the seat that I was sitting in. This day-timer that he had franticly been looking everywhere for and had taken a considerable amount of time to talk about was in fact in the truck that I have been driving. And to make it worse, I knew it was there all along. He had borrowed the truck while I was away in Michigan and when I retuned and was sitting in the truck about to leave I saw it there, above my head in behind the visor (if that is what it is called). I could have taken it into him immediately but I didn’t. (that was the laziness part)

I missed the main message of what Paul was preaching to us on Sunday morning because I learnt a lesson myself.

Not giving the Day-timer back was probably 30% laziness and 70% spite.

I had sent Paul an email a few weeks ago looking for some answers to questions that I had been thinking about, advice on what I was reading at that time, and books that could be helpful for futher study. Yet he still hadn’t replied. I remember joking with Jono that until he gives me back something that is important to me (the answers to my questions) then I would wait to give him back something that was important to him.

I would probably say that I am a little harsh on myself because I did have the book sitting on my front of the truck last week planning on giving it to him. But in my rush I forgot to bring it in.

Oops.

What made it worse was that towards the end of the service (still in church with everyone there) Chris Evans decided to announce to Paul, while he was still preaching that I did in fact have his Day-timer. Thanks Chris.

Won't forget that message for a while.