Putting it down. Keeping it down.

This week Dr. Alison Barfoot, our GO Africa Field Director from Uganda, was in town.  Of course, we took that as an opportunity to share a meal.  As usually happens, when our team gets together for some fun, a little silliness soon followed.  We started quizzing Alison about the some of the stranger food she’s had while living abroad.  After tales of fried grasshoppers and other foreign delicacies, Alison gave us her bottom line.

“There are some meals,” she said, “that when I pull myself up to the table, my prayer goes something like this, ‘Lord, I’ll put this down, but You have to keep it down.'”  Laughter filled the room, in part because many of us have been there.

Serving God doesn’t always involve delicious experiences. At times He asks us to do the difficult, but here’s the point – whether delicious or difficult, nothing will last without the Lord’s hand.  He gives us our part: faithful obedience.  We are to put down whatever He places on the plate before us and to do so with gusto and gratitude; but the lasting part, the eternal significance, the transformational fruit, is only the work of the One who can keep it down.