{"id":18296,"date":"2019-05-19T15:49:00","date_gmt":"2019-05-19T20:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/?p=18296"},"modified":"2019-05-19T15:49:26","modified_gmt":"2019-05-19T20:49:26","slug":"the-one-question-we-are-not-allowed-to-ask","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/the-one-question-we-are-not-allowed-to-ask\/","title":{"rendered":"The one question we are not allowed to ask"},"content":{"rendered":"

“You do not know which will prosper, either this or that, or whether both alike will be good.”\u00a0 (Ecclesiastes 11:6).<\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n

“Of what use is this?”<\/p>\n

What fruit will this bear for the Kingdom of God?<\/p>\n

We never know.<\/p>\n

It’s the question we should never ask.\u00a0 First, we’ll not get an answer until we get to Heaven.\u00a0 And second, to insist on knowing what God will do with our effort, our gift, our witness, before we act is to remove all faith from it.\u00a0 And without faith, pleasing God is impossible (Hebrews 11:6).<\/p>\n

You drop your offering into the plate at church.\u00a0 There it goes.\u00a0 Where it will end up, what it will accomplish, God alone knows.\u00a0 Your church has a budget, you know how the money will be added together and which causes it will fund.\u00a0 But your particular gift, you have no way of telling.<\/p>\n

You’re distributing flyers for your church.\u00a0 Some, you know, will end up in the garbage.\u00a0 Some will never be read. But what if one or two become instruments for the Holy Spirit and someone’s life is forever changed?\u00a0 Wouldn’t that be worth all the effort?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

You offer up your prayers.\u00a0 You intercede for Gary’s health, for Joel Kent’s healing, for empowerment for Tom and Bonnie, for blessings for James and Lari, and for daily watchcare over various ones.\u00a0 But you do not know what good your prayers do.\u00a0 You have no way of monitoring situations before and after you prayed, to see “what hath God wrought.”<\/p>\n

“We walk by faith, not by sight.”\u00a0 (2 Corinthians 5:7)<\/p>\n

You do not know how God uses your prayers for missionaries, for pastors, for the sick, for anyone.\u00a0 Once in a while, you are given a fleeting glimpse.\u00a0 But very rarely.\u00a0 And even then, you have no way of knowing whether this thing happened–someone was healed, saved, got a job, or was protected–as a result of your prayers.<\/p>\n

And so we labor on. We pray. We give.\u00a0 We serve. We witness.<\/p>\n

And we leave it with the Lord.<\/p>\n

I drove across town and surprised an 8-year-old’s birthday party.\u00a0 Her parents were in the ministry and we all shared a deep mutual appreciation.\u00a0 When I volunteered to crash the birthday party–just long enough to draw the children–they jumped at it.\u00a0 So, II sketched Gabrielle and her buddies as well as the adults present, then left.\u00a0\u00a0She \u00a0is now in college and may not even recall that “Brother Joe” did such a thing for her.\u00a0 What did I accomplish?\u00a0 God knows.\u00a0 And I’m good with that.<\/p>\n

As I write, last Friday night my wife and I drove 241 miles round trip to crash another party.\u00a0 This time it was for the beloved granddaughter of a minister friend.\u00a0 He and I worked it out, and we had a fun experience sketching Celeste and her classmates and family members.\u00a0 We were tired when we got home, but we had enjoyed our drive and the opportunity to see these friends.<\/p>\n

What did we accomplish?<\/p>\n

The mother of our Lord told the servants in Cana, “Whatever He says to you, do it” (John 2:5).\u00a0 She had no idea Jesus was going to ask the servants to fill those six waterpots to the brim.\u00a0 That could have been as much as 180 gallons in all.\u00a0 Yet, they did it without a clue as to what would happen.<\/p>\n

They were witnesses of our Lord’s first miracle.<\/p>\n

The Lord said to Simon Peter, “Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.”\u00a0 Peter said, “Lord, we have toiled all night and caught nothing.\u00a0 Nevertheless”–did he emit a sigh or a groan?–“at Your word, I will let down the net.”\u00a0 That’s Luke 5, and you know how that turned out.<\/p>\n

We are not to ask.\u00a0 Just do it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“You do not know which will prosper, either this or that, or whether both alike will be good.”\u00a0 (Ecclesiastes 11:6). “Of what use is this?” What fruit will this bear for the Kingdom of God? We never know. It’s the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18296"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18316,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18296\/revisions\/18316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}