Guest post by Darren Cole Butcher

A construction crew is hard after it on a large hotel project. The plumbers are inside doing there thing and the brick layers are doing theirs on the outside. Let’s say I am a brick layer, I’m mixing my mortar and climbing the scaffolding, doing my thing. I then see some plumbers carrying in some pipe into the building. My dad used to do a little plumbing and I do a little at my own house, so I go to check it out. While watching them I notice that it all looks strange to me and the complexity of it all looks wrong. So I say to them that this and that could be done this way and that. I also suggest that they could use this tool and that tool as I do myself at home and have seen others do. The plumbers, with their extensive plans and orders laid out if front of them, stop working and gather around me. They ask “ are you a job boss?” “do you work for the foreman?” “have the plans and orders changed?” - I say, I was just noticing this and that could be done this and that way and…The Job foreman walks up right then. “what is going on here, why are you guys not working and what are you doing over here, don’t you work outside on the brick.” So I say, well i know a little about plumbing and wanted to help these guys out, it all looks strange to me, so I suggested this and that be done like such and such. They all look at each other and back at me, then they scan over the plans and discuss this and that and such and such. The foreman then dismisses the plumbers and asks them to get back to work according to the plans and orders they had originally discussed. He then turns to me and says “thank you for your wisdom and concern, we have duly noted all of it and they will now go back to work. Now let’s get you back out there laying brick, where you are suppose to be. If there are any other “suggestions” that you might have please inform your “boss” he will tell me and we can build a better project here, we might even switch you to that job if indeed we find you to be helpful in it, more so than your current position. But we do not need any more distraction and we really need both the plumbing and the bricks to be finished by such and such dates. So I return to my bricks and finish out the wall and the plumbers get back to work and finished their plumbing.

The whole time I was not laying brick and talking with the plumbers, nothing was getting done according to plan. They had to stop their job to engage with me, now they wanted to do right and were concerned about this so they did “respect” what I said, but when all was said and done I did not help them I hindered them. The job of this scope went well beyond my “home” knowledge. The fact that I had been laying bricks and not being involved from the beginning caused my judgment to be skewed anyway. Since the purpose for all of us to be there was to build a motel and brick laying and plumbing were both part of that goal, I was helping with neither by leaving the one to instruct the other. Now the “foreman” was polite and responded correctly to me and escorted me back to my place, everything was back to where it was suppose to be.

This is the main reason the “kingdom” is not being built on schedule and in order. The wall was not getting built (my job) and the plumbing was not being done (your job). We all need to be and do what the foreman has set out for us to do. We all have a place that Christ has appointed us and equipped us for. We must all do our part to complete the whole. When one leaves their job and “becomes the expert” at another’s, they do not lend themselves to the overall productivity of the project.

So now that this has been said, I must excuse myself and go back to work also

Oh and - I hope what I suggested in your plumbing operation was or will helpful - good day.

Thank you “foreman” for setting me straight. Whether you are the plumber or the brick layer we need to get back to work now.

(This was in prayerful response to “others” and “myself” “occasionally” bouncing off each other on my page and in my ministry, I got the above picture in my head and decided to share)

The wealthy man by Darren Cole Butcher

The wealthiest man in the world went in searched for a bride, looking in each town, city and street. He finally came into a certain part of one of the places he looked, there was a woman there that was homeless retched and blind. She had been a whore, murderer and a thief. Now she just sat in the dark corners of the deepest pits in the town. He looked her over, then proclaimed to her that he was choosing her. All throughout the world the news went out that he had chosen a bride. He reached down to her and lifted her into his arms, then took her to his house. She was bathed, given every treatment she needed and her old shabby clothes were exchanged for glorious dresses and exquisite robes. After he eyes had been looked at and tended to, she regained her sight. Her skin began to lose the “dirty look” that it had taken on from all the nights in the streets.

The man brought her before him after all that he had, had been invested in her. She stood before him as a radiant, beautiful bride. He proclaimed to her that all he had was hers, the bank account, the cars, the houses and more. She fell to the floor and wept, being overwhelmed with the changes that were taking place. He went to her and lifted her into his arms, holding her close. She cried and cried and cried, the years of pain and grief she had bore fell to the floor with her tears. All she could do is allow him to pull her in and embrace her, she had no strength left in herself.

When she would walk out into where she used to live, no one dare say she was the same woman that he had chosen. He had to have gotten rid of the woman they knew very well and replaced her. They went to him and asked what had happened to the woman that he had picked to be his wife. He responded that they were correct, he had gotten rid of the woman that they had knew and replaced her with another. The woman that now stood before them was a brand new woman.

When they asked her where she had come from and who she was, she had some remembrance of this other woman and talked briefly of her. But then she went into great detail about who she was. How his fullness of love was what she had become, all that he had was hers. They pleaded with her to tell them from where she had come from. She only responded by telling and showing them all who she had become.

The other woman seemed to have disappeared. Her clothes or her person could not be found. The people thought to themselves, surely she was put away and destroyed once he saw who she was. The new couple would sit together where ever they would go and look on each other with such love with knowing smiles of what had really been and what now was. The people would look on in amazement when the would see small glimpses of that same woman in her, but none dare say that she was not changed and made new in every way possible.

She thought to herself often about the love and undeserved favor that she had received from her husband. The woman would only smile with such a smile of that of a child that was embraced after having been lost in a cold forest over night, to have been found , warmed, fed and wrapped up in a warm blanket. Her countenance was that of a beloved bride and not of a murderous, retched whore. The woman’s hands had even lost their dingy, calloused texture. They had now become the hands of a queen, soft tender and manicured to perfection. He would hold those hands often while watching each sundown and look over her with such affection, it would warm the hearts of all who were near. Now he would ever so rarely think on her as who he had found, but more so as who was before him. This love that they had was pure and right in every way, there was no flaw in either one as they lived their lives as one.

This woman’s reality became every other girl’s longing. From the houses in the best neighborhoods, into the darkest corners of the streets from where she had come, they all talked (and dreamed) of how they would one day receive the same treatment from their husband. It was a perfect picture of love and grace. No one could say that it was not a marriage “made in heaven”, it was what some would call perfect.

The best news about this story is that in the end all the hoping and fantasizing that all would have such fortune, was realized and found to be obtainable through Christ. Has he not come to you in such a fashion as described above? If the one you responded to has not done all that was listed, you have responded to the love of another, not the pure love described hence. If we remain as we were, we have not been brought into all that he has, is and will be. We did not go to him as we declared to all, that we had. We do not sit with him and attract the admiration of all as the woman above did. We even declare that we are retched, blind and lost, but one day our “prince” will come, while in truth we have missed the meaning, purpose and plan of the original invitation. It is to come away now and become all that his wealth, love and ability can transform us into. We are to become the radiance of his glory and walk through this “old neighborhood” of ours and glow with splendor, because of who we have become.

Now who in their right mind does not want this? Which of us that has truly received all this listed here for us now does not want to fall deeper into the “fairytale” world? I personally am done talking and even being who I once was. We need to lose ourselves in the truth of the gospel and stop talking about that it will be a one day thing, it is for today and a present reality that is available to all. Let us freshly look at the invitation that is being offered us, let us not lie to ourselves and say we have went away with “this man” if yet we are still blind, retched and lost. Let us cry out to him anew and say wait, do not leave me here, I do want what you have proclaimed, make me new, make me whole, clean me Jesus. I want to be who your love makes me into. No more me, I want all of you. Then I, we and you can rest in him and be all that we were meant to be with him.

Make this your reality and fall in love afresh with God today, for Jesus is the invitation to the world above, no longer go, speak of or be what was, only that which is and will be.

God bless you today as you live this life.