Reaping the Reward

I was sitting at my desk working one day when I received a text from a friend.

The text said, “award winning chili simmering on the stove.”

I had to laugh. As I laughed, I thought to myself, “Deborah took my recipe, entered it into a contest, won the ribbon and now calls it her award-winning chili.”

As I laughed, God reminded me of something in the word of God.

The Parable of the Talents

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a man traveling to a far country, who called his own servants and delivered his goods to them. And to one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, to each according to his own ability; and immediately he went on a journey. Then he who had received the five talents went and traded with them and made another five talents. And likewise, he who had received two gained two more also. But he who had received one went and dug in the ground and hid his lord’s money. After a long time the lord of those servants came and settled accounts with them.

“So he who had received five talents came and brought five other talents, saying, ‘Lord, you delivered to me five talents; look, I have gained five more talents besides them.’ His lord said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.’ He also who had received two talents came and said, ‘Lord, you delivered to me two talents; look, I have gained two more talents besides them.’ His lord said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.’

“Then he who had received the one talent came and said, ‘Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown, and gathering where you have not scattered seed. And I was afraid and went and hid your talent in the ground. Look, there you have what is yours.’

“But his lord answered and said to him, ‘You wicked and lazy servant, you knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed. So you ought to have deposited my money with the bankers, and at my coming I would have received back my own with interest. So take the talent from him and give it to him who has ten talents.

‘For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away.” (Mt 25)

I had the same recipe she has, actually it was my recipe – I gave it to her. However, I failed to do anything else with it. She loved the chili and took the initiative to enter it into a contest – and she won! Therefore, she got the reward. Rightly so.

If God gives us something, whether it is a recipe, or money, or a gift of working of miracles, if we fail to do anything with it, He will give it to someone who will. He makes this truth clear in the word of God.

I often think of something a minister once shared. He said God once told him not to get too confident, that he wasn’t the first-person God asked to do what God called him to do. He wasn’t even the second or third.

What does that tell us? If we don’t do what God tells us to do, He will find someone who will, even if it isn’t His first choice.

If God has given you a gift, He means for you to do something with it. If God has given you money, it has a purpose. Whatever God has given you, He expects you to cause it to prosper. To do something with it. That’s the lesson I learned today from the award-winning chili that someone else reaped the reward for. Don’t let that happen to you. Now, I don’t mind one bit that my friend got that reward, I am happy for her. That being said, I don’t want to allow the gifts God has given me to lie dormant, I want to do with them what He tells me to, what He expects me to and thereby I will reap the reward. How about you?