Being Used by God
An excerpt from Chapter Five of Living in the Overlap: How Jesus' Kingdom Proclamation Can Transform Your World
Many years ago my father worked with a woman named Lois. At first she was his secretary, and then she became secretary to his supervisor, the president of the corporation. She knew Dad as someone who was honest, who kept calm under pressure, and who treated people the way they would like to be treated. She knew my mother as a warm, outgoing person who took a genuine interest in the people Dad worked with. Although Mom and Dad don’t broadcast the fact that they’re Christians, most people who have known them for any length of time realize their faith is important to them.
One day Lois attended a special service at her church, led by an evangelist. He said that Jesus offered forgiveness and eternal life to those who committed themselves to him. And Lois thought, That must be what happened to the Schaefers. She wanted in her life what she had seen in theirs. So when the evangelist invited people to make a commitment to Christ, she responded to the invitation.
The next day at work she told Dad about the decision she had made and the influence he had on it. As the weeks passed it was our privilege as a family to see Lois grow rapidly in her Christian walk. However, it wasn’t long after this that Lois discovered she had cancer. In spite of the prayers of God's people and the best medical care, she died. But she died knowing that she would spend eternity with God because of her relationship with Jesus Christ.
As I look back on that episode with Lois I wonder what might have happened if Dad had been the kind of Christian who sometimes set aside his principles at work—who wasn’t always honest, who lost his temper easily, who didn’t treat people right. What if Mom had been the kind of woman who made life miserable for her husband’s secretary? And I visualize Lois sitting in church listening to the evangelist, thinking, This must be what the Schaefers are into. And if it is, I don’t want any part of it because I don’t want to be like them.
I can’t help but wonder what a difference there may have been in Lois’s life and eternal destiny. And through it all my folks would never have known the consequences of their lack of Christian commitment in this area.
This incident reminds me that, living in the overlap, every day we have encounters with people that can lead them one step closer to God or one step farther away. And in many, maybe most, cases we may not have a clue about the impact we’re having.
Perhaps one reason I feel so strongly about this is that my own Christian walk is partially the result of this kind of encounter. When I was a sophomore in high school I got involved with Campus Life. And although I had been brought up in the church I realized I didn’t have the relationship with God that a lot of the other Campus Life kids had. I remember a particular turning point. When we were sharing prayer requests a girl stood up, choking back tears, and said, “Please pray for me. I’ve been treating my mother so badly, and I feel terrible about it—I need your prayers.”
I thought, “How can she admit that in front of all these people?” I wouldn’t have admitted my faults before a roomful of people. I could barely admit them to myself. But I realized that she and the other kids were free to be real with each other because they knew God loved them exactly the way they were and he was helping them become the people he wanted them to be. They were not Super-Christians. They were just real people struggling to follow a real God. I realized I wanted what they had. And it wasn’t much later that I made my commitment to become a Christian.
I don’t remember that girl's name. I don’t even remember what she looked like. But there are two things about her I do know. First, I know that God used her to give me a glimpse of what it meant to be a Christian and to help turn my life around. Second, I know that during the exact moment God was using her in a mighty way to help draw me into the kingdom, she felt like a total failure as a Christian.
And this is why I think it may be a mistake to be preoccupied with our own usefulness. When we strive to be useful, there’s a tendency to look around us to see what kind of impact we’re having on people. And chances are we’ll either overestimate or underestimate what God is really doing with us.
Jesus’ parable of the talents can help us here ( ). Jesus compared the kingdom to the situation of a man going on a long journey. Before leaving, the man gives five talents to one servant, two talents to another one, and one talent to a third. (A talent is a weight of money, like a gold brick.) When he returns, the man finds that the first two servants had put their wealth to work, doubling its value.
“Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness,” he tells each of them.
But when he discovers that the third servant had merely buried his talent, the master reprimands him for being wicked and lazy. He tells the servant that he could have at least earned some interest on the money by putting it into a bank. Then he decrees that the talent be taken away from that servant and given to the first servant.
It’s significant that the master does not tell the profitable servants, “Well done, good and useful servant.” He praises them instead for their faithfulness. And he condemns the unprofitable servant, not for lack of results, but for lack of effort. Faithfulness, not usefulness, is what’s emphasized in the kingdom; the implication is that if we focus on faithfulness, usefulness will follow. When we adopt a lifestyle of faithfulness we become more like Jesus. And the more we become like Jesus, the better equipped we are to be used by God.
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