Trusting God?

Ironically I was tasked lately with planning for Home-group on the topic of work. I say ironically because I am unemployed.

I wanted to lead on a section of Ecclesiastes. I liked the idea of talking about seasons. How there is a time for everything, and at times the time to not do something. I am usually not a fan of this concept in the moment. I want to be in control, I want everything to just be awesome. When I look back on the other hand I am glad for seasons. For times of learning specific things.

As I tried to prepare this discussion I kept being drawn to Matthew 25. This is the three part parable about what the kingdom of God is like: the 10 virgins awaiting the bridegroom, the master who goes on a long journey (parable of the talents), and the goats and sheep.

The middle section is commonly called the parable of the talents and is about a master who is leaving on a long journey. It is long enough that he must leave his servants in charge of his affairs, I imagine that if it was shorter he could afford to wait or just let things be. He entrusts five talents to one servant, two to the next and one to the last. He leave and on his return calls the servants to account for themselves. We see that the first two took their money and were each able to engage in trade to double their money, the master is overjoyed and invites the servants to celebrate with him; he also promises to give them more responsibility and money. The last, entrusted with only one talent, was afraid of the master so he buried the money and returned the same amount to the master. This is seen as an insult by the master, the servant is stripped of the one talent and kicked out of the house.

I did a little math. According to the footnotes in my Bible a talent is worth about 20 years wages for a laborer. For an estimation I assumed that a laborer would be someone who only makes minimum wage, works a normal 40 hour work week but does not get vacation (works 52 weeks a year). That gave me about $300,000 per talent. So reworded:

The master is leaving on a long journey. He entrusts on servant with $1.5M, one with $600k and one with $300k; each according to his ability. He then leaves.

This is the place I want to focus. I feel like this is where I am. I am not sure if I am the servant with the ability to be entrusted with $1.5M or $300k, but I am one of them. God has entrusted me with something and I want to hand it back to him with more in the end.

If I am honest with myself I am most like the servant who buried the money at the moment. I am terrified. I am scared of making a mistake.

What if I am 4th servant, the one not in the story that lost all his money?

Or worse, what if I succeed?

Both are scary thoughts. I want to just hand my one talent back the God and say "It is too hard, I am scared."

"You overestimate my ability."

But I do want to do something. I want to be a light, to serve others and be a part of bringing the kingdom into people's lives.

It is just so easy to let the fear of both success and failure to rule me.

The story just says that in the end the servants had double their money. It doesn't discuss how many times the lost money or had to start over in a new trading method or location.

They were rewarded because the master knew what they were capable of handling, gave that to them and they responded.

When I put it that way it feels much more manageable!

So at the end of the day, do I trust God to know me well enough to give me the right resources and opportunities?