The Maker of our hands

"You can't make the able willing, but you can make the willing able," I shared with my ministry peers whenever training our ushers comes to mind. Like you can't force a horse to drink, you can't force someone to rise up. Then I thought to myself - for people who are willing but yet don't have certain leadership qualities, will the statement above no longer stand?

"...but now you also must complete the doing of it; that as there was a readiness to desire it, so there also may be a completion out of what you have. For if there is first a willing mind, it is accepted according to what one has, and not according to what he does not have..." - 2 Cor 8:11-12

Faith without works is dead, the Bible says. I figured one has to be willing and yet available (make time) for discipleship, training and serving. Otherwise, a desire remains as a desire, a seed remains as a seed; until you decide to act upon it, nothing will come forth from it.

Thereafter, ability will follow. The verses tell us that it is not about what you can already do; it is about what you have in your hands and when you offer them to the Lord, He will bless and multiply them just like what He did to the five loaves of bread and two fish. He is God; expect no less from Him.

Every single thing in our lives has not been given to us for misuse or keepsake, but rather, entrusted - a sign of His lordship over us, a test of stewardship in our lives.

Joshua always tells me that it's not about whether I can do it or not, it is about how much I want to do it. Beatrice just reminded us what faithfulness is - It is not burying the five talents you already have and hoping at the end of the day, the five talents remain (Jesus calls this wickedness!); but it is using and multiplying the five talents into ten, twenty, thirty or more!

I remember this scene in the inspiring film 'Patch Adams' when Dr Patch (played by Robin Williams) told a patient to lift up one of his hands and asked him what he saw... Dr Patch himself saw ten. I guess many times when we look at our own hands and see our own inadequacies, we wonder what good can come out of them. The trick is to look beyond. Stare at your own fingers hard enough and soon it'll become a blur. What you'll focus on is no longer yourself but the Maker of your hands.

Don't shortchange God, yourself and the people around you. Can you see beyond?