Influencers Weekly Devotional

Our Little to His Great by

Bryan Craig

“Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much.”

Luke 16:10

Well, my brothers, only a few more days remain in 2012. As with all years, if we take the time and allow the Lord to open our eyes, we will see God at work this past year amidst the triumphs, the pains, the struggles and even the normalcy of life. My brother-in-law’s father is nearly 80 years old and is suffering from heart failure. Hospice is involved, and his life is mostly restricted to his bedroom and his bathroom. My brother-in-law used an interesting word when describing his Dad as he awaits death…”reflective.” Oh that we would be “reflective” today, not in the hour of our death, for it is through reflection that God intersects our hearts and the scales fall from our eyes. I plan to reflect with God on the events of 2012 in my life with my journal and my pen in hand. I know He has much to show me. A spiritual principle has been jostling about my spirit these past few weeks, and it seems appropriate to share with you at this moment. We all have dreams and desires that we carry within us, and in our vulnerable moments with God, we share them with Him. There are problems we want fixed, unfulfilled hopes we wish to be redeemed, relationships to be mended, successes to be realized. We bring these things before God, wondering if He hears our prayers, mustering up faith to believe that He truly wants to give us the desires of our hearts. After all, scripture says: “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.” Psalm 37:4 We tend to skip over the first part of this verse and get right to the desires of our hearts. However, the first part is most important. God has SO much He wants to give us. He even wants to give us salvation. BUT…He wants us to come to Him first. Yes, in an act of submission and humility, we come before God. We spend time with Him. We abide with Him, and He will give us more than we can imagine. He may even change our desires. However, He expects us to come to him in obedience. A great story in 2 Kings 4 illustrates this principle. We read about a widow who is going through a terrible time. She is a wife of one of the prophets which is similar to being a pastor’s wife. Her husband has died and now creditors are coming to take her two boys as slaves because her husband’s debt is beyond her capacity to pay. I don’t need to help you understand the weight of debt, especially as we all await the credit card bills from Christmas spending. This poor woman is burdened. She is forced to carry the grief of losing her husband and then, she must deal with his debts on top of it all. I’m sure there is a part of her which believed that since her husband was a holy man, she deserved better. Nevertheless, she cries out to Elisha. This is before Christ came, so ordinary people had to bring their appeals to God through a prophet. Elisha asks her what she has to help the situation. She comments that all she has is “a little oil.” He tells her to ask her neighbors for empty jars. He tells her to gather a lot of them, “not just a few.” After she has done what he requested, he takes her little jar of oil and fills all of the jars. He miraculously multiplies her “little oil” into enough oil to pay the creditors, and He also gives her extra on which her and her sons can live. He gives her more than what she desired. God is the creator of the universe. He is the master designer. He is amazing beyond understanding. He can do anything. He can give us anything we desire. However, He always wants us to do our part. It may seem like He is asking us to give everything we have. Like the widow, He asked her to give Him the only asset she had remaining and to trust Him with her sons’ future. It seemed irrational and risky, but she had faith enough to believe Elisha knew what he was doing. One other interesting note is that God involved her neighbors, those in her community. They didn’t have to do too much, just provide some empty jars, but God seems to like it when we all work together to help one another. We have to be humble enough to receive help from our neighbors. We all have needs, and we all have desires. Those of us who are abiding with Christ are bringing those needs and desires before the Lord. We are waiting on His response. Like Elisha, I would ask you to think about what you have to help fulfill your desire. Are you withholding anything? If so, you need to trust Him. Give Him everything if you must. He knows your needs before you even ask. He cares about you and your family and your provision. He cares about all the things which concern you. He wants to help you. He may be waiting on you to trust Him. Brothers, I want to use this opportunity as your guest devotional writer, to put in a plug for the Influencers ministry. In all my years, I have never seen a ministry which has done more with so little. This ministry was birthed in the marketplace, and because of this, it has never been a typical ministry. This is a grassroots ministry, with very few staff members or administrative overhead. However, in the 10 years this ministry has been in existence, thousands of men have been transformed through intimacy with Christ discovered in Journey Groups. That translates into so much more impact if you think of the marriages, the children, the businesses and churches connected to those men. God has guided this curriculum into other countries, and it has been translated and seeded into the lives abroad. It has been taken into prisons to give those men hope and freedom. It has come alongside the Church to help pastors and encourage men to further the Kingdom in these communities. All of this has been accomplished by trusting God and with very little fundraising. We believe God is guiding us into even greater territory and responsibility. We believe He is pleased with how have given all we have, and we have seen Him multiply that in ways we never would have imagined. But we see SO many more opportunities to spread this message of “intimacy with Christ.” The fields are ripe for harvest. As the world seemingly grows darker, the light of Christ appears even brighter. We will carry out our sacred responsibility and this sacred message wherever God would take us. We are bringing on additional staff members to ready ourselves for the challenge. Jesus said, “Go…make disciples.” We are ready to go. As a fellow Journey brother, I ask you to go with us. Pray about how you can help. We will need new Journey Guides. We will need Champions in churches and in cities. We will need resources. God has raised up the first level of this army called Influencers, and He is sending us into battle. I am a business owner and a ministry leader in Tulsa, but I believe in this message of Influencers. I plan on doing my part with my time and my resources to help launch Journey groups around the world as long as I live. I am praying for an even deeper commitment on my part to this ministry. If you have been blessed by Influencers and by a Journey Group, I would ask you to support this ministry financially on a monthly basis. No matter how little the donation, I can promise you God will multiply it into the lives of men and families. Go to this Support link and you can sign up to help. Just like the widow asked her neighbors for jars to carry the coming blessing, I ask you to join us on this mission. He has prepared us “for such a time as this.” Download file