Mario Andretti led the 1967 Indianapolis 500 for almost 99 percent of the race but lost when a metal washer worth less than a dime broke inside the car’s engine and the car coasted to a stop short of the finish line.
How important was that little washer to the million-dollar racing team?
Success could not happen without it.
And so it is for the parts of God’s Kingdom that He designed to have a place in His plan.
Whether the part is the mouthpiece standing in the pulpit or the teacher sitting at the classroom table or the reclusive volunteer who prepares communion trays on Friday morning or the office volunteer who assembles church information folders for giving to visitors.
Everybody is important since God has created everybody with abilities to serve and a congregation needed people to serve.
There are no “non-essential” people when it comes to God’s work and His Church.
A reminder of this truth is found in the daily Bible reading for today from the One-Year Bible. Numbers 3 describes the various family group divisions among the Levites who were assigned by God with the tasks of setting up, taking down and caring for the Tabernacle where worship and sacrifice occurred for the Israelites before the Jerusalem temple was built.
The Levites had this responsibility for more than 400 years and during those centuries, there were hundreds of men involved in each generation, doing their respective tasks as assigned by family group.
Yes, there was a group responsible for moving and cleaning the golden ark of the covenant. That’s a big-time job, no doubt. And there was another crew responsible for moving and maintaining the bronze altar used for sacrifices. Another big-time job.
But Numbers 3:33-37 talks about a family group from among the Levites called the Merarites. It was their job to manage the courtyard posts, bases, pegs and ropes.
Hmmm…. I envision a faithful Levite of the Merarite clan carrying a bag of tent pegs with the same sense of responsibility as if he were carrying the ark of the covenant’s lifting pole on his shoulders.
I see him deriving great satisfaction as he picks up the tent peg and drives it into the ground with an iron hammer. For he knows that without the peg, the post will not stand.
And without the post, the courtyard curtains will not hang.
And withouth the courtyard, there is no identification as “set apart” for the tabernacle itself where the efforts of his Levite brothers had erected the holy place and the holy of holies within that.
You see, the guy with the tent peg is just as important as the guy setting up the ark of the covenant.
Listen, no job is too small in God’s Kingdom.
For they all have big impact.
However you volunteer at your church, do it with passion. Because God sees it as hugely important.
Because it is.
Even if some just see it as carrying a tent peg.
As always, I love you
Martin
