Oscillating Mascaras and Fish Finding Watches
I used to be a mall rat. Not anymore. Now -- only when absolutely necessary – do I drag myself to
one of the mega shopping meccas. Then I run in, get what I need and run out.
However . . .
Oscillating mascara? Yep. Lancome
and some other cosmetic lines are now marketing battery-powered mascara.
Jean-Louis Gueret, creator of mascara brushes for Lancome, said he came up with
the idea for oscillation after watching makeup artists at work. While applying
mascara, their hands move in a zigzag pattern. So to best emulate the movement,
Gueret explained, he came up with a flexible, polymer-based mascara brush that
vibrates along its longitude at 7,000 micro-oscillations a second. To launch
the battery-powered movement, one presses lightly on an area of the mascara’s
outer tube that turns on a three-centimeter motor.
Gueret said that, as the mascara
brush vibrates against eyelashes, they become “organized” and evenly coated
with a mascara formula that also extends, curls, shapes and makes lashes seem
thicker.
Well, I just stood there in the
aisle riveted . . . and then I burst into great gales of laughter. But now I
feel like crying. There, in front of me, was a perfect example of being
acted upon vs. acting. Now, you can take a stick, put it up to your eye and
voila! -- perfectly organized eyelashes.
Today, all of the guesswork and
sense work has been taken out of the equation because now recreational
fisherman can purchase a fish finder akin to those used by the huge commercial
operations. The device is worn on your wrist and doubles as a working
wristwatch. The instrument’s sonar sensor reads to a depth of 120 feet and
operates in a wide 75-foot remote radius, transmitting real-time views of fish
to the 1 1/4" LCD display. Come on! Talk about shooting fish in a barrel!
Where’s the fairness in that? Where’s the fun in that?
The more I look around today, the
more I see a good bit of our culture heading toward Wall-E-ism. A key plot
point in this animated movie (released in 2008) centered on the creator’s
vision of what would become of
humankind after 700 years of having everything done for them. The picture
wasn’t pretty: human beings as useless baby blobs being acted upon, not acting.
Wall-E warns us of the dangers of rampant consumerism and presages what can
happen to the Earth when human beings abandon their responsibility for
stewardship.
Now, working off of this intro, I’d like to ask you some questions: Will
you settle for being acted upon or will you act? Are you using, will you use,
your God-given talents or will you bury them? Will you be a good steward of
what the Lord has given to you or will you abandon that responsibility?
To get a grasp on how important the
stewardship of our talents might be, let’s look to the Gospel of Matthew,
chapter 25. There we read:
“Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his
servants and entrusted his property to them. To one he gave five talents of
money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his
ability. Then he went on his journey. The man who had received the five talents
went at once and put his money to work and gained five more. So also, the one
with the two talents gained two more. But the man who had received the one
talent went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.
“After a long time the master of those servants returned and
settled accounts with them. The man who had received the five talents brought
the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five talents. See, I
have gained five more.’
“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You
have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things.
Come and share your master’s happiness!’
“The man with the two talents also came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you
entrusted me with two talents; see, I have gained two more.’
“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You
have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things.
Come and share your master’s happiness!’
“Then the man who had received the one talent came. ‘Master,’ he
said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and
gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and
hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’
“His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that
I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed?
Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that
when I returned I would have received it back with interest.
“‘Take the talent from him and
give it to the one who has the ten talents. For everyone who has will be given
more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has
will be taken from him. And throw that worthless servant outside, into the
darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’"
I’ve researched the modern
equivalent of the biblical talent and have come up with a range of estimates.
In one place, I read that one talent was a worker’s average income for anywhere
from three to 38 years worth of work. So, if we come somewhere in between and
say 15 years, five talents would be the income for 75 years of labor, two
talents the income for thirty years of labor. In another place, the author
calculated today’s value by drawing from the talent as used in military pay. During
the Peloponnesian War in ancient Greece, a talent was the amount of silver
needed to pay the crew of a trireme (a warship powered by 170 plus oarsmen) for
one month. Hellenistic mercenaries were commonly paid one drachma for every day
of service; 6,000 drachma made a talent. Based on this fact, assuming a crew of
roughly 200 rowers paid at the basic pay rate of a junior enlisted member of
the US armed forces, a talent would be worth nearly $300,000.
Bottom line here: the talent was an
enormous sum of money.
But, for our purposes today, let us
think of the talent as not just a measure of finances but a measure of the
amount of gifts, resources and abilities that God has given to each one of us.
So what happened here? In our story, all three individuals were given good
gifts. All three were given good talents and resources. Not one of these
servants earned the resources or talents that they were given. We need
to understand that all of the talents were pure gifts from the giver of
gifts: God. Not one talent was earned nor deserved.
The one who had received the five talents put them to use, went off at
once and traded with them and made five more talents. This
individual was industrious with what had been entrusted to him and he doubled
what he had. In the same way, the one
who had the two talents put those talents to use and he doubled what he had.
Notice that the “five talent”
person and the “two talent” person did not get into psychological games about
who had the most talents. They didn’t get into games about “I am superior
because God gave me five talents” or “I am half as good because God gave me two
talents.” There were no “comparison games” being played here.
Both individuals realized that the
one who had given them resources expected them to use those resources for His
glory. That was simple and clear. They had to turn in an account of how they
had used the gifts that the giver of gifts -- God -- had entrusted to them.
Now, in our story, the one who had received the one talent went off and
dug a hole in the ground and buried the talent he’d been given. Remember
this talent wasn’t anything to sniff at; this was an enormous waste!
We, too, have been given resources,
gifts and abilities and we are to use them to please our God – we’re not to
bury our talents.
Every one of us has received clusters of gifts, clusters of resources. Each and every
unique one of us. But, we can bury those treasures – as did the third person in
this parable – we can bury those treasures.
But, like the three in our parable,
we will also face the moment of settling accounts. We, too, will need to face
the giver of gifts to explain how we used what He gave us. And you see the joy
here of those who put their talents to good use. They were happy and God was
happy with them.
How precious to hear the words from
our Lord: “Well done, good and faithful servant.” We hear this phrase on
judgment day in the Book of Revelation and also in the words of the Apostle
Paul. We want those words said about us on our judgment day.
This is not a “works righteousness”
kind of thing. We know that salvation is a pure gift and that we cannot earn
our way into heaven by our works. Rather, the sign
that our salvation is freely given is that we do the works that God wants us to
do out of thanksgiving and not to earn anything from God. Salvation is always a
free gift, undeserved, unearned.
Knowing that we are saved by God’s
grace, however, we “do” the works that God wants us to do, not to earn
salvation but because God has filled our hearts with love and our actions with
compassion.
Now the one who buried his talents actually blamed God for his own
inaction. We may respond in the same way. If we don’t use the
gifts/resources/talents that God has given to us, rather than blame ourselves,
we may end up blaming God or evil or evil circumstances for the fact that we
did not use our God-given gifts.
But note the way the giver of gifts responded to the one who had buried
his talents, “You wicked and lazy servant! You knew, did you, that I reap where
I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have
invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what
was my own with interest.” This individual tried to blame
God but it didn’t work. God saw through his “blame-game.” So the talent was taken from him and given to the
one with the ten talents -- the one who would put the talent to
good use.
Each one of us has been given
gifts. Your gifts are the sum total of all the resources that God has given to
you. Your gifts or talents are not
just your genetic abilities and natural aptitudes, although these
are part of your gifts. Many of your most precious gifts are qualities
and resources that have been developed in you over time.
And one thing we know is that God
wants us to use these gifts, these God-given gifts for His service and,
as you use those gifts, the Lord showers you with blessings.
Mary Schramm has written a book
entitled, Gifts of Grace. She suggests that there are five steps in
ascertaining and using your gifts, and I would like to walk through those steps
with you.
The
first step is to discover your gifts, and you always discover your gifts in relationship. You rarely or
never discover your gifts in isolation. You discover your gifts through
your parents, teachers, coaches, instructors, friends, fellow Christians and
others. Other people help you to discover your gifts.
The
second step is to accept the gifts that God has given to you. This
is the art of maturity, learning to accept the gifts that God has given to you
and not given to you. A key
thermometer is how jealous and envious you are of other people and their
gifts. If you are jealous and envious of other people’s giftedness or feel
inferior, chances are you have not really accepted your own blend of gifts that
God has given to you. One of the primary keys of life is to accept and use
the gifts that God has uniquely given to you, your unique blend of talents, aptitudes,
abilities, life experiences, the sum total of all your resources.
The
third step is to enjoy your God-given gifts, to take pleasure in
them, to appreciate what God can do through your life.
The
fourth step is to mature or develop those gifts. Like all
gifts, they need to be put to work, to be exercised, developed. Nothing in
this world becomes stronger without hard work and investment of time, self and
energy. Just to rely on native talent and avoid the hard work of
developing a gift will lead you nowhere, but will cheapen your gift and you as
a person.
And
the fifth step involves all of the steps, and this is to surrender all of your
gifts to God. If you don’t,
you'll either bury your gifts or you will use your gifts for your own benefit...to glorify yourself or to
satisfy yourself. Either you give your gifts to the service of Christ and
His mission in this world, or you don’t. And, if you don’t, you will
always fall short of happiness.
Many people ask,
“What is God’s will for my life?” Very simply, you do God’s will in your
life when you discover, surrender, and use your gifts to honor Him and bless
the world around you. It’s not that difficult. That’s stewardship,
the management of the life that God has given to you. You have been blessed to be a blessing.
And:
May the God of our Lord Jesus
Christ, the Father of glory, give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in
the knowledge of Him; may the eyes of your heart be enlightened, that you may
know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious
inheritance in His holy people, and the immeasurable greatness of His power in
us who believe, according to the working of His great might which He
accomplished in Christ when He raised Him from the dead. (Ephesians 1:17-19)
