Theological Commentary: Click Here
Discipleship Focus: Capacity
- Capacity asks whether or not the person has the time in their life to obey God.
As I do
every day, before writing this post I went back and edited the theological
commentary that I wrote 3 years ago.
This is the commentary to which I link at the beginning of each of these
posts. Today I was inspired by the story
of Nehemiah and how he set his spiritual life into motion around him. I was inspired by the applications of
Nehemiah’s example to the realm of spiritual discipleship.
Look at
what Nehemiah does in these chapters.
Nehemiah goes about his task in small order at first. He examines the wall at night so that he won’t
have to put up with the distractions of other opinions or curiosity that he
would no doubt get during the day. After
he formed his own opinion he consulted the leaders around them to see what they
thought. Then he divided the task up
into manageable portions that were not too daunting to accomplish.
So how am
I going to apply this thought to the concept of capacity? Well, the idea of capacity has much to do
with time. If Nehemiah had arrived and
invited everyone to talk about how to rebuild the wall, the task would have
been too daunting and nothing would have happened because everyone around him
would have decided that they didn’t have the capacity – or the time – to accomplish
everything that needed to happen. But by
going about the process in small and manageable steps, Nehemiah was able to
keep the capacity angle manageable. By
keeping the capacity angle manageable, Nehemiah was able to get other people to
invest in the construction and fruit was brought forth. Not one of the people that Nehemiah invited
into the plan refused Nehemiah because they didn’t have the time to do it.
I really
think this has direct application to our life as disciples of Jesus. If I get up every morning and say, “Today I
am going to be the perfect follower of Christ that He desires me to be,” well,
I’m going to give up before I ever try.
I don’t have the capacity – the time – to live up to that statement with
all the other things in my day that need to get accomplished. However, if I sit back and say, “I’m going to
invest a few minutes here in God’s Word.
Then I’ll think about it throughout the day. Maybe I’ll even try and talk to one person
about what God is saying to me. And
while I’m at it, I’m going to find one person this day to whom I can show God’s
love.” No, that’s completely
doable. I can manage that during my
day. In fact, I can manage that most
days before I even leave my house in the morning! I do have the capacity to accomplish that
list.
The truth
is that if I have the capacity to accomplish that list then I will be inspired
throughout the day to do even more. By
breaking up discipleship into small and manageable pieces, I can find that I do
have the capacity to follow God and do what He asks of me. The overarching task is daunting. But the small daily pieces that make up that
list are absolutely able to be accomplished.
We all do have the capacity to follow God on a daily basis if we think
about it under the right perspective and plan as Nehemiah did.
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