doing something with what you've got

So a week away from the snowfall of the century here in DC and I'm still trying to sort my life back out. Someone told me today that the Blizzard revealed everyone's true nature. I sort of hope that isn't the case for me, because I definitely have been slightly (or a lot) insane over the past two weeks. Thankfully, I finally got to go to church on Monday night. 

We're in the middle of a sermon series on spiritual disciplines and the past two weeks our pastor has been talking about the importance of Bible study. It's a common mantra at Frontline that what you hear in the 30 minutes Todd Phillips (our teaching pastor) is preaching each week is just enough to make you dangerous, but little else. This week he made a point that's really stuck with me: God may withhold revealing additional truth to us if we've failed to do anything with the truth we're given. 

He referenced the parable of the talents in Matthew 25, where a master goes away and entrusts his property to three of his servants. Two of these servants take the master's money and increase it two fold, while the third buries his money in the ground out of fear of his master.  After the master returns from his journey he is pleased with the fruitful servants and displeased with the "slothful" servant. 

This passage is ripe with application and analogies, but to tie it back to what Todd said, the master was displeased with the servant who hadn't done anything with what he'd been given. I've been spending a lot of time this week thinking about the Biblical truths God has clearly revealed to me, even just over the past nine months. God has entrusted me with far more than I deserve, and revealed parts of His character to me that I previously haven't known. I've learned a lot, but I can't confidently say I've been entirely diligent in applying these truths. 

What good is knowing truth if it doesn't change you? I know that my life goes a lot better when I'm applying God's truth in my life, and worse when I don't. So why must I constantly be like Paul in Romans 7, doing what I do not want to do--or worse, wanting to do the things I know I should not want to do, all the while having the audacity to continue to ask the Lord to reveal more of Himself to me. I can't quite imagine what my life would be like if I'd already been faithful in applying the truth He's shown me during the 20 plus years as a Christ-follower.

There is so much I have yet to apply, but there is one big truth in particular that comes to mind that God has revealed to me over and over again the past few years that I have yet to fully embrace and apply in my life. So this month I'm abandoning Facebook and gchat to focus more on this truth and how to make it manifest in my life, and how, when I apply it, it allows me to "share in my master's happiness."