A Blank Check

In the youth small group I help lead, we’ve been working through Follow Me by David Platt. It’s been a good study so far.

A recent lesson talked about giving God a blank check with our lives. It’s a biblical concept. If God is God, and we owe everything to him, we must be willing to follow him wherever he leads. It’s picking up our crosses and dying to ourselves.

But once again, I was struck by how instantly we assume “blank check” equals “big ministry.” Part of this is the metaphor, but we tend to make these assumptions regardless. I surrender all. Here am I send me! And when we say that, we assume that we will be sent.

Most of us aren’t, though. We push the blank check across the counter to God, only to be miffed if he writes “nursery duty” in the line. We tend to assume we will be sent to do something public, but most of us will be quite ordinary. We are making casseroles for new moms and preparing the communion trays. So many little tasks need to be done for the church. So many ways we need to love those in our local church body. So many people in our neighborhoods and towns who think Christianity is just a list of dos and don’ts, who need to be told the good news of the gospel.

I’ve written on this before, and I’m sure I’ll write on it again. Anywhere, anything. Even if it’s humble, and even if it’s never noticed. But it’s never unnoticed by the One who calls us.

I like how Nate Palmer puts it in his book, Servanthood as Worship:

The call to servanthood is a call to worship God by serving others with joy, even when we are not thanked, even if we are mocked, and sometimes even when it seems our service does no actual good. In the absence of recognition, reward, or results, we can be satisfied with what God has done already, what he has promised to do, and whatever he may choose 
to do in the future. With regard to ourselves, God’s ultimate treasure and reward—eternal salvation—has already been given to us through Christ. Can we really ask more of God than this? With regard to those whom we serve, God has promised to make our efforts fruitful in his own time and his own way— one plants, another waters, but God gives the increase.

Our satisfaction should come from God, not in whether our ministries, however humble they may be, are noticed or even, to our assessment, as fruitful as we hope.

So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. (1 Corinthians 3:7)