You paint houses for a living. A homeowner has decided to hire you and has left you with a very important task. He is departing for a trip out of town and while he is gone, he wants you to paint every room of his house white. He stresses to you how important it is for this to be completed before he returns home.
You are excited about this job and start the next morning bright and early. You start painting the first room white, and by noon you’re on the second room. More white. By evening, you’ve begun the 3rd room of…more white. You realize you’ve grown very weary of seeing the same paint color all day. Suddenly, a brilliant idea occurs to you that puts an instant pep in your step. You’ve decided to surprise the homeowner. You can hardly sleep that night as you formulate the details of this elaborate surprise. You wake up early and grab all the paint supplies you’ll need. You arrive at the house and get to work. The masterpiece unfolding before your eyes makes you grin from ear-to-ear. After several hours of back-breaking work, you step back and look at your hard work with great pride. The multi-colored, bright unicorn mural that you’ve hand-painted is absolutely jaw-dropping. You just KNOW the homeowner will be so excited that you took the most boring wall in the house and made it beautiful.
The day of the homeowner’s return arrives. Beaming with pride, you excitedly show him your masterpiece. You wait, barely breathing, as he quietly inspects your work. Suddenly, he speaks, but it’s not at all what you expected to hear.
“Why did you not do as I said?” the homeowner asks, with great sadness and disappointment in his voice. “I simply asked you to paint the walls white, but instead, you painted them the way you wanted. I trusted you to work for me and to follow my instructions, but you have wasted both of our time by painting unicorns.”
This silly story was told to us last year by our missionary friend while we were in Africa. He told the story, and then handed each of us a unicorn pen to help etch this story in our minds. He reminded us that as Christians, we can easily be distracted from the work we’ve been told to do by our Savior. When Jesus left this earth, He commanded His followers to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He left us with a very straightforward task. Basically, “each one reach one and teach one”.
Yet, we’ve taken this simple task and overcomplicated it. As though we find the gospel boring, we have poured our time and energy into everything else BUT this command. Some will ignore Jesus’ command entirely. They’ll spend their lives chasing the next dollar and living for the next pleasure. Others will sort of listen. They’ll spend an exorbitant amount of time running their churches like glorified country clubs or rec centers – with a huge emphasis on keeping people entertained and happy. Many spend their lives wondering how to make their churches grow financially or numerically. Their church loses members to one church while gaining members from another: basically, staying in a perpetual state of “sheep trading”. None of the above is keeping us on task. Few are being saved, and even fewer are being discipled. This is a great indictment on our churches, but it’s an even greater indictment on ourselves.
Oh, how distracted we have become! We will do anything and everything but the job we’ve been tasked with by our Master. When is the last time we have intentionally set out to share the gospel with the lost? When is the last time we’ve taken someone under our wing and discipled them? Jesus is coming back soon. God forbid He come back and find us painting unicorns. Lord, forgive us. May we never grow weary or bored with Your simple assignment of reaching and discipling lost souls for You.
Just a Mom’s View 