One of the perks of furlough is times of special fellowship with friends while eating in their lovely homes or being taken out to restaurants. Last week, we visited a new restaurant (to us) with a friend. After we had ordered, the owner walked over to greet our friend. Then he turned to my husband and me and said, "We've never met, but I know you." To which my husband replied, "From seeing us on refrigerators, right?" Yep, that was it!
So we are famous––refrigerator famous. Not sure that qualifies me to write a memoir. Well, perhaps I can write one, but whether it will find a publisher is questionable. You've probably heard the three requisites for getting a memoir published. You have to be either famous (refrigerator famous doesn't count) or in my case as a missionary, you have to be martyred or kidnapped. Needless to say, I don't qualify in any of those categories. Since the latter two are not on my bucket list, I think I'll try another genre for my next published work.
But being biblically famous is on my bucket list.
2 Corinthians 8:18 (ESV)
"With him we are sending the brother who is famous among all the churches for his preaching of the gospel."
Another translation:
2 Corinthians 8:10-20 (MSG)
So here's what I think: The best thing you can do right now is to finish what you started last year and not let those good intentions grow stale. Your heart's been in the right place all along. You've got what it takes to finish it up, so go to it. Once the commitment is clear, you do what you can, not what you can't. The heart regulates the hands. This isn't so others can take it easy while you sweat it out. No, you're shoulder to shoulder with them all the way, your surplus matching their deficit, their surplus matching your deficit. In the end, you come out even. As it is written,
Nothing left over to the one with the most,
Nothing lacking to the one with the least.
I thank God for giving Titus the same devoted concern for you that I have. He was most considerate of how we felt, but his eagerness to go and help out with this relief offering is his own idea. We're sending a companion along with him, someone very popular in the churches for his preaching of the Message. But there's far more to him than popularity. He's rock-solid trustworthy. The churches handpicked him to go with us as we travel about doing this work of sharing God's gifts to honor God as well as we can... 2 Corinthians 8:10-20 (MSG)
Two things on my biblical bucket list:
1. Being famous among all the churches for my preaching of the gospel.
2. Far more than popularity is being counted rock-solid trustworthy.
What's on your biblical bucket list?
