Dear Friends

The BIG and the small

Are you God? If you had to tick a box that asked that question, you’d obviously tick the ‘No’ box – otherwise you might be considered a candidate for an asylum. But how often, in fact, do we live our daily lives as if we are God. We expect the world, the people, and the circumstances around us to mould themselves to our wishes. We expect respect from everything as if it is our (divine) right.

The bumper sticker – ‘Actually I do own the road’ – brings a smile of recognition to most of us. Like the lion tamer who one day finds the lion roaring back or the disciples confronting the storm or Gadarean demoniac, we suddenly are rudely reminded that we are not God – not even in control.

The question confronts us with the issue of perspective and working out what is the Big and what is the small in life. In our recent Sabbath School lesson we read the story of the disciples seeing the transfigured glory of Christ then the next scene is one of their inability to cast out a demon. That was a lesson in perspective – who is Big and who is small.

There are many situations in life where this perspective needs to be understood. One is in regard to the church. Henry Cloud, a clinical
psychologist and author of ‘Integrity: The Courage to Meet the Demands of Reality’, tells the story of a wealthy and successful CEO who was in a church committee and was in full flow on the item under discussion when he stopped, and asked the committee’s forgiveness for his acting as if he was the CEO of the church rather than a disciple and servant of the Lord of the Church. Wow – here was a man who knew what is the Big and what is the small.

Is it possible for church leaders – presidents, elders, treasurers, Pastors, deacons etc., to slip into control (God) mode and think the
church and its members are for our purposes rather than His? Leaders can laud it over the church and think its members and funds are for their (good) purposes and control rather than the reality of being servants and good shepherds who will give their lives for the sheep (John10:11-12).

So what’s BIG and what’s small in your life?

Llewellyn Edwards