Valuing The Vessel

 But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel. Acts 9:15

Next week we celebrate Thanksgiving. However, Thanksgiving should be more than just a holiday that we celebrate once a year. Instead, it should be a lifestyle that we adopt and a practice that we embrace on a regular basis. All of us have received an amazing assortment of blessings : financial, emotional, relational, and spiritual. And given the challenges of the past several months, just to be alive with (as the old saints used to say) a reasonable portion of our health and strength is a gift that should not be taken for granted.

And that is precisely our temptation: to take our blessings for granted. And not only is it easy to take our blessings for granted, it is far easier (and alas, much more common) to take the vessels through whom our blessings flow for granted as well. Sometimes we are so busy thanking God for our blessings that we forget to thank the people that God uses to bless us.

This unsettling truth was forcefully brought home to me several years ago during the weekly Bible class that I teach. Shortly before the class began, a young woman asked if she could share a testimony. Usually you have beg people to share good news, so I was elated and agreed. Honestly, I have rarely seen anyone as excited as that sister was that night. She popped up from her seat like a pop tart bouncing out of a toaster, with a big grin on her face, pure joy in her eyes, and music in her voice. “I want to Thank God,” she purred, “because today the most amazing thing happened to me. Out of the blue, my boyfriend decided to get my brakes fixed. I was driving without any brake pads for several days, and was scared to death. But he had the car towed to the dealer, paid for the repairs, and even got the car detailed!” The audience erupted in praise, and tears began streaming down the young woman’s face. As a man who has financed his shared of repairs, I shared her joy and identified with her boyfriend’s pain. Getting brakes replaced ain’t no joke. And this brother did it for a woman who wasn’t even his wife! LOL

When the room settled down, I posed what I considered to be a fairly reasonable question. I asked : “Did you tell your boyfriend thank you?” Suddenly, it seemed as if all of the air went out of the room. Almost every head in the crowd swiveled in her direction, and I saw the grin on her face twist into a frown. “No,” she replied, with heat, and then added “for what?” I replied , “well, because God uses people. And since God used your boyfriend to get you the blessing, we should not only thank God, but we should thank your boyfriend as well.” A stunned silence hung in the air. But I persisted. “And hey…since we’re here, why don’t we just call him now? We can all thank him for being such a great example of warm hearted generosity.” No lie: sister Girl grabbed her pocketbook and stormed out—-and I have not see her since.

Part of me still can’t believe that happened, and for many years now I have wondered why it did. Perhaps she was embarrassed for being put on the spot. Who knows. But I cannot resist the deduction that thanking her boyfriend (more like man-friend if dude is buying brakes!) had not even occurred to her. And she is not alone. Far too many of us thank God, but don’t thank the people that God uses.

We often fail to consider that God is a spirit. In order for a spirit to influence a body, a spirit has to be carried by another body. A vessel is required for the transmission. Think about it this way. Every organ in your body requires blood to function. Blood is pumped through the body by the heart, and carried to your organs through vessels called arteries, veins and capillaries. Together they comprise the body’s circulatory system, which is over 60,000 miles long! These are vessels that the heart uses to transport life to your organs. In the same way, God uses people to transport blessings. How can we thank God and not thank the vessels that God uses? It’ like thanking our heart for pumping blood but not thanking our arteries, veins and capillaries for carrying it. The former is impossible without the latter.

God had to remind Ananias that the Apostle Paul was a vessel chosen by God to carry his gospel to the far flung corners of the world, and thus deserved all the support he could offer. And God’s strategy has not changed. God chooses vessels to bring his blessings into our lives—and rarely do the vessels look like or act like we imagined. But when we realize they have been chosen by God, it ought to melt our hearts in praise.

As we heard toward Thanksgiving, I want you to think about the people that God has used to bring you blessings this year. And then I want you to give them a call or send them a note and give thanks. Just don’t thank God. Thank the vessel!