The Two Dollar Table

Ecclesiastes 3:11: He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

James and I often visit hardware stores. We’ve been renovating our home for many years so there is always something we need. On one particular day we ended up in the garden section despite not being there to look at plants. Right at the back of the outdoor plant section was a table – full of dead and dying plants marked ‘reduced to clear’. I picked up a couple of punnets of pansies and violets thinking they were only $2 so what did it matter if they didn’t survive. I brought them home and watered them and a couple of days after that thought I had better plant them in the garden, by this stage they were pretty dilapidated. So, I planted them in the garden, or I should say I just plonked them in the garden, I didn’t really give them much care or attention, I still had the mentality that if they didn’t survive, I was only losing two bucks, so it didn’t matter.  You can imagine my surprise a couple of days later after being planted and watered, that I noticed buds starting to appear and a couple of days after that, they flowered, and were still flowering several weeks later…

The point of my story?

1. How often do we place little value or worth on something because to us it seems to have no beauty or purpose? Yet, how often is it these very things that teach us the greatest lessons?
2. It is often the things that appear beyond help, or seem too hard, that with the right environment become things of previously unseen beauty and untapped potential.
3. God has placed a plan and a purpose in each of us that needs to be nurtured to its full potential. My plants were always created to become beautiful flowers but they nearly died because they were neglected and un­-nurtured.

God’s original plan was that everything was perfect and beautiful. As I was admiring my flowers one day it struck me that we so often overlook or disregard people because they don’t look right or they might be hard work. How many times do we shy away from the people who with a bit of care and nurture can blossom into something we never expected? My plants were almost discarded as being of no worth, they hadn’t been nourished and nurtured and were slowly dying. Sound familiar? How many people do you know who have become disillusioned with life, bitter from being hurt and slowly dying because no one is nourishing and nurturing them? They are in the too hard basket, the people equivalent of the ‘reduced to clear’ table that nobody wants to deal with. Or, how many times have we been the ones on the two dollar table who have been neglected and hurt and are slowly dying just crying out for someone to help us, desperate for life giving water?

We were not created to be isolated from one another. God commands us to love one another (John 13:34-35) Jesus is our greatest example. He went out of His way to care for and minister to the broken, seemingly unworthy and outcasts of His time. He loved the unlovely and showed compassion on them. Should we not be doing the same?

Looking again at the scripture from Ecclesiastes 3:11; my thoughts….

1. He has made everything beautiful in its time – Everything and every person is created by God to be a thing of beauty. We are all created equally beautiful and with immeasurable worth in His sight. People need to be nurtured to grow into the people they were created to be. This is our time.
2. He has also set eternity in the human heart – we all have a God given plan and purpose with eternal consequences, but we have also been given a heart of free will. You can choose to not follow your plan and purpose but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s there. Whether we acknowledge Him or not, we have an intrinsic need for God in our lives and can’t truly deny that eternity, or the need and desire for more than this life, is planted in our hearts. We all have a responsibility to nurture, admonish and encourage the people in our sphere of influence to be able to recognise and step into their God ordained destiny.
3. yet, no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end – none of us can know the end from the beginning, and we’re not supposed to, which is probably a good thing! It is not for us to understand God’s will, but God was, is and always will be in control. We have been placed on this earth, in this place and at this time to step out of our comfort zones and minister to the hurt and dying people who are hungry for living food and water.

Challenge:

For much of my life I have been the one sitting on the two-dollar table. I can recall more times when I’ve been told what I can’t do, rather than what I can. How about you? Are you the one on the two-dollar table, or are we the ones keeping others there? I am sad to say I have also been guilty of keeping others on the two-dollar table. People I haven’t wanted to help due to fear or uncertainty, or people I haven’t known how to help and have shelved instead of taking the time and effort to dig deeper into why they are there in the first place. How often do we let fear and second guessing stop us from either fulfilling our purpose, or helping others fulfil theirs?

Who or what is on your two-dollar table that you need to nurture and breathe new life into? Maybe it’s you who is on the two dollar table, who or what is keeping you there?

What are you able to do about it? What can you do today? What steps can you take to make a change for good in your life, or someone else’s?