today at church mark shared about living our lives with eternity in mind.... and during the time he spoke, he handed out peanuts, one to each person, then proceeded to give his message, all of us holding on to our peanuts.
not knowing what was up with the peanut, i just looked at it and wondered.... hey, is that really a peanut? that don't look like no peanut! it's too round.... is this a trick question? lol
so i broke it open, and sure enough i had in my palm a bathtub with an old fart takin' a bath on one side, and a bathtub with nobody in it on the other. only the old fart quickly lost his head and i then had two 'headless' bathtubs, and an old fart's head rolling around in my palm....
anyways, i digress (lol).... i wondered what analogy mark was going to give about the peanut. i thought, well, when it comes to my life, what i have to give in my life, towards God's eternal purposes, is basically peanuts. in the grand scheme of things, i AM nothing but a peanut!!! what can i contribute? i'm only one peanut. i only have peanuts!
and then i had a vision of a clear glass jar, on the little table up at the front of the 'sanctuary', and mark saying, 'ok everybody, bring your peanuts up to the front and tell everybody about your peanut'. a few people went up and said things like, "i have a peanut"... and "it's just an ordinary peanut".... and "it's just one peanut".... and after they shared, mark told them God had need of their one little peanut, had them place their peanut in the jar, and go back to their seats. one by one, the wee little peanuts were filling the jar. when it was my turn i went up and said apologetically, "it's only a peanut, and it's broken, to boot!" and mark said, "well, God can use your peanut even if it's broken," and had me put it in the jar.
so then, having had this vision, i realized the jar represented the church, that particular jar was our church body, and every church body is a jar or peanuts, ....we think we have but one peanut, but joined together in unity, as a family, as a body together, our peanuts add up quickly, and are a lot more that "just peanuts". add our jar of peanuts to the jars of every other church in town, and you get major peanuts.... then add those to the jars of the next city, and the next.... to our province... our country, our world.... and you have a veritable peanut movement, spanning the globe, impacting the world for God.
so what if my peanut is broken? think God can't use it? well, God's going to break it anyways, becuase you gotta crush peanuts to make peanut butter! and He breaks us, and reshapes us into His image. it doesn't matter if my peanut's lost it's head, God's gonna use every bit of that peanut to His glory.
we think we are ineffective or unimportant becuase we are only one peanut? and i'm broken one at that? or we have only one peanut, and it's broken? think again.
and not only that, God REQUIRES that peanut of us, that we use it for His glory and eternal plans... and He VALUES that peanut. He GAVE us that peanut, ENTRUSTED it to us to steward... who are we to devalue our one little peanut?
....anyways, mark finally came to the place in his message where he explained the peanuts in our hands. he told us to hold up our peanuts right in front of our eyes.... and think - what are you spending your time time looking at, giving your energy to, turning ourselves over to, that is part of God's eternal plan? ....because, if it's not part of God's eternal plan, then what you are looking at is worth nothing but peanuts.
very good analogy! but, after all my thoughts of how wonderful the peanut was, with mark's comment i think the market value of the peanut plummeted!!!! my mental peanut stock market crashed!!! it was so hilariously anticlimactic that all i could do then was to look at my glorious peanut and think, "OH."
...ate it anyways, ate it anyways...
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