Riches in the Rags

For this post to make complete sense, it will benefit you to read 1 Chronicles 4:1-15. I understand that it is a genealogy. Honestly, there are quite a few of these in the Bible. I forget sometimes that this is a historical book as well, written to a different people in a different place at a different time.

Have you read the passage yet?! If not, go ahead, pause and do so. If you have, read on.

If you are anything like me, these passages tend to drag on. I can’t even pronounce any of the names. A few of them sound like bad words, so be careful! It feels a bit like life.

Mundane.

Today is Monday, and some of you may hate that. You wake up, eat breakfast, go to work, come home, watch Netflix and go to bed. Only to get up, and do it all over again the next day. If you aren’t careful, the days can start to blend together. They drone on and on like verses 1-8 in this passage.

I am going through a “Read Through the Bible” plan on my phone. Let’s all be honest with ourselves for a moment. We come to a passage like this and we read a verse or two and then scroll to the bottom of the chapter and click next. There is one problem with this:

God wants to work in the middle.

If you didn’t make it past verse 8, then you missed out on two incredible verses in the middle. A passage that shares how we can approach God in our prayers and what He responds to.

v. 9-10 “Jabez was more honorable than his brothers. His mother had named him Jabez, saying, “I gave birth to you in pain.” Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, “Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let you hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.” And God granted his request.”

If you want to find riches in the rags of life, you need to look for opportunity in the mundane.

I’m sure you have all heard of the Prayer of Jabez before. Some author or pastor was willing to gut out the chapter with eyes open, searching for riches in the middle of rags. Our life can feel like verses 1-8. If we aren’t intentional to keep going, we may very well miss out on verses 9-10.

This is how we are to live our lives. Everyday doesn’t have to be Monday. Yes, we live in the valley, not the mountaintops. That is not an excuse to ignore the Holy Spirits prompting in an ordinary moment on an ordinary day. He has riches waiting for us. He has opportunities we could only dream of, if we would open our eyes.

To take this one step further, we often do the same to people. I wonder how the story of The Good Samaritan turns out if the man beaten and robbed was someone of importance? Would the priest or scribe stopped to help? We dismiss people in the same way that we dismiss days. Boring, nothing to offer, no value to me, etc.

2 Corinthians 4:7-9 “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.”

There is a treasure in this jar of clay. Another translation calls us earthen vessels. Don’t discount the treasure because of the vessel. Don’t discount the riches because of the rags. Don’t miss out on verse 9 and 10 in life because of verses 1-8.

Even if nothing glamorous comes to you today, God is developing a treasure, riches, inside of you. Let these insignificant moments build you and shape you into something beautiful. Be found faithful in the little that is here and now. Do your mundane work with diligence, all for the glory of God. See what riches He will pour out because of it. Look for the opportunities that arise in the middle of it.

Don’t miss the riches God has for you on this average, ordinary Monday!