A Little Snow

Steve Says

Last weekend I sent a picture of the “crazy amount” of snow we got that shut down schools for two days to my friend in Upstate New York. I sent the picture as a joke because he had already told me that he was tired of all the snowfall he has had to deal with this year. We are at roughly the same latitude (we are a little farther north); however, they have gotten much more snow. He told me that his town has had over 180 inches of snow so far this winter. I couldn’t help but think of how different the climate in Oregon is compared to New York where my friend lives.

This got me thinking about the spread of the Gospel. In Matthew 13 when Jesus tells the Parable of the Sower, He ends by saying that the seed sown on good soil “produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”

Isn’t that how it is with us?  

I know many people who have devoted their lives to preaching the Word of God, whether it be from a pulpit as a preacher, in a youth room as a youth minister, in a classroom as a bible class teacher, or in the workplace as a “simple” Christian. All of these have let God speak through their words AND through their actions. But all of them have had different results from their labor in the Kingdom of God. Some have converted many, some have converted few, some have converted none! But all have been laborers in the Kingdom. It’s easy to see the fruit of other people’s labor and question what we are doing wrong. It’s easy to get discouraged. That is the work of the Enemy trying to hold us back. But we cannot let discouragement hold us back. We need to press on and be a light to those we see every day. Even Paul recognized that he couldn’t MAKE people turn to Jesus. But we can show them the love God has for them every time we interact with them.

Who knows, what seems like a small gesture in our minds might be the “crazy amount” effort that person needed in order to finally see God’s Love in a way they have never experienced it before.