I was watching Master Chef the other night and something Chef Gordon Ramsay said like just cut to my heart and convicted me and challenged me in the deepest way. I haven't been able to stop thinking about those words for the past week.
They gave all the home cooks like these really expensive langostas (small lobster/crab type of things, apparently rare and expensive and served in nice restaurants). They had 60 minutes to take that and make a dish out of it. This one guy made a simple salad with some langostas on top. In the dramatic climax of the show the angry judges threw his salad in the trash and they were like what did you do with that whole hour?? Then he said it:
"We gave you the best, we only ask for the best from you."
And in my mind I'm imagining like, "What if at the end of life we all appear before the Judge with our dish, with what we made of our life, with what we did with the gospel? What will I bring to the table?"
God gave us the best, he gave us Jesus and this amazingly rich gospel and our lives. What am I gonna make of it, what am I gonna do with it? If he gave me his best am I giving my best back? Am I using my time wisely and using opportunities and ingredients and creativity to make some thing worth tasting?
I want to bring him a dish, a life that will make him proud. Like I want to take what he's given me and invest it and multiply it and make something beautiful of it. I don't want to bring a salad that only took 5 minutes out of the 60 that I was given. I want to bring an amazing dish that took work, creativity and shows off what He has given me. I want God to say, "I gave you my best and you gave your best back." I want to invest in people, love well, serve, give my self away, make disciples with a far-reaching impact, make an eternal impact on the lives of many people. I want to sow seeds of prayer and faith and reap a harvest. I want to bear much fruit, good fruit through remaining connected to the vine and living a life of obedience to him.
I felt recently I haven't been giving my best because I have been in a pit of self pity. And so I repented of that and I asked that my suffering and pain in life would become key ingredients in the work of my life and ministry that I will bring to his table at the end of my life.
I couldn't help but relate this to the parable that Jesus tells where the master gives talents to 3 servants and 2 of them multiply the talents but the last guy buries it to keep it safe. This is what the master says about the guy who played it safe and didn't multiply the investment (kinda like salad guy):
"Take the thousand and give it to the one who risked the most, And get rid of this "play-it-safe" who won't go out on a limb. Throw him into utter darkness." Matt 25:28-30 (msg). "Risk your life and get more than you ever dreamed of, play it safe and end up holding the bag" Luke 19: 26 (msg)
"You can either multiply your life or bury it" ~ my mom
No comments:
Post a Comment