If I were to ask you what you imagine to be the most valuable land in the world, what would you say? The Ghawar oil fields in Saudia Arabia? The Jwaneng diamond mine in Botswana? Real estate in Monte Carlo? Actually, it’s none of those. Are you ready for the answer?
It’s a graveyard.
I’m serious. Think about it for a moment. Consider the treasures that lie buried in a graveyard: unrealized dreams, unwritten novels and books, invention ideas never tried, business opportunities not pursued, fractured relationships not reconciled. This list is endless. Good intentions—“maybe I’ll do it tomorrow”—lay buried in graveyards everywhere, uncounted treasure that might have been.
Pondering this thought as we start a New Year, I am reminded of all the times God has prompted me to do something, and I rationalized my way out of doing them. Little things many times: not picking up that hitchhiker on the side of the road because it might be too dangerous; not offering to take a homeless person for a meal because it’s not my problem; not stopping to help someone with car trouble because I’m in a hurry and someone else will do it; not calling that friend who hasn’t heard from me in a while because I’m busy. They’re all just little things, right? They won’t make that much difference after all.
My heart has been greatly convicted in this area after reading a powerful little book by Clare De Graaf entitled The 10 Second Rule. It’s a simple concept about putting into practice all that Jesus has commanded us to do as His followers by acting in the first ten seconds before we talk ourselves out of it. You know those inner voice promptings that happen, but the more we think about them, the more we find reasons not to do them. Here’s the rule:
When you’re reasonably certain Jesus is asking you to do something—do it immediately!
So, here’s my challenge for all of us in 2014, whether young or old. Let’s train ourselves to be alert to the promptings of God in the everyday things of life and act on them. I also want to ask you to share some of the things God has led you to do and what happened. This isn’t so we can pat ourselves on the back. It is simply to encourage one another through our own stories to remain alert to the voice of God and to live courageously beyond our own comfort zones.
Remember, not everything Jesus asks us to do will necessarily result in some incredible good that we can see as a result. Yet when we do it to give glory to God as a conduit of His grace to others…that is sufficient. It’s also storing up treasures in heaven.
Let’s not let those treasures be buried with us in a graveyard someday.
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