Marbles or Grapes

Sometimes a brief blog post is more poignant than a long one.  I wrote this about 14 months ago, but it still challenges me.

At the time, I was reading from a devotional book by Chuck Swindoll as he mused about the importance of the "lesser" gifts. You know; the ones that people don't often see up front, but that folks quietly carry on without fanfare and without much notoriety.

He wrote a paragraph for a summary that was more about the nature of the church in general than about spiritual gifts specifically. Although he wrote it over 20 years ago, it has me thinking...

"Marbles or grapes, which will it be? Every congregation has a choice. You can choose to be a bag of marbles...independent, hard, loud, unmarked and unaffected by others. Or you can be a bag of grapes...fragrant, soft, blending, mingling, flowing into one another's lives. Marbles are made to be counted and kept. Grapes are made to be bruised and used. Marbles scar and clank. Grapes yield and cling."

I know some marbles. I hope I'm not one of them...

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