WOW has this season of life been weird!nIf you would have told me last year that our nation would shut down for months due to a worldwide pandemic I would have laughed!nI remember sitting in one of our staff meetings several months back listening to our One More One Less Project Director, Chris Gray, talk about this virus and how he felt it was going to get bad here! I gave an internal eye roll but boy was he SPOT ON! He's a pretty smart guy! LOL… but seriously !!
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nHere we are 4 months into this pandemic, and things get crazier and more weird every day!nWe started this non profit with the goal in mind to advocate for foster children through the local churches in NC!nWe believe that the church (Christians) have a responsibility to care for the orphans and the widows (James 1:27). It has been difficult when churches are not meeting in person, therefore, they aren't really as open (or some even able) to have us come speak and share our vision!
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nI'll be honest, it's been a hard season navigating these waters as a new non profit! We still KNOW that God has called us into this ministry and we still fully believe God has work for us to do right now, even through this! However, there have been times over the past few months where we have prayed and asked God, "Ok, now what?"
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nI recently read a desiringgod.org article that really impacted me! You can view the full article here: https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/seven-lessons-for-productivity.
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nLet me share a short summary. This article is about John Piper and his ministry "Ask Pastor John", which is a podcast where people can write in questions for John Piper to answer. These questions range from questions on marriage, parenting, homosexuality, loss, etc.nIt has impacted me as a listener and I know it has impacted so many others! In this article they celebrate the 1,500th episode while mentioning they were originally planning to stop at 400! The majority of the article is on lessons for productivity and one of the lessons he spoke about was to "Chop a little each day".
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nHe stated, "We need to be deeply persuaded that steady, small chops with a good, sharp axe will almost certainly, after a few hundred blows, bring down a very big tree. I take a little chop every day at something, and the tree is going to fall. You pick up a good axe, and you take regular chops, you will make good progress. If you have to see a tree fall every time you pick up an axe, you will spend your life on little projects. There are great trees worth turning into beautiful houses that can only be brought down by a thousand small, faithful chops."
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nWOW! This was so impactful for me! How many times do I sit and chop at the same thing for so long that I exhaust myself and become so overwhelmed that I become discouraged and STOP! I put the axe down out of exhaustion and often times don't even come back to it because I drained myself trying to complete the job right away instead of taking faithful chops at what God has called me to!
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nI know that this time and this season is hard for so many people! I know that foster care is hard! I know we want to see change happen RIGHT NOW! We want to see abused children rescued RIGHT NOW! We want to see the goals of our non profit achieved RIGHT NOW! We want to see foster children feel the love of Jesus RIGHT NOW!nHowever, we must keep taking "faithful chops" at what God has called us to and know that in being consistent with those small chops, eventually that tree will fall and that goal will be met! n
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1 Corinthians 15:58 reminds us to "Stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always gives yourselves fully to the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain."
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