“Use It or Lose It”

“And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: Take therefore the talent from him,…” Matthew 25:25, 28

If a person were to hang their arm in a sling and refuse to make any use of it, within a few months that arm would lose all its strength and become useless. If you learn a second language or a third and then fail to practice and speak that language you will forget and not be as fluent as you had been. And it is that way with our talents for doing good; it is ‘use or lose.’ If you have the ability to do something, do that something and you will be able with each succeeding day to do it better. But if you do not do it, you will perhaps attempt to do it some time, and will find it impossible.

It is told of the great violinist, Paganini, that he left his marvelous violin to his native city of Genoa, but with instructions that no one was ever to play it. This was most unfortunate, for it is the peculiarity of the wood of which this violin was made, that as long as it is handled and used, it wears but slightly, but as soon as it is laid aside or discarded, it begins to decay. Paganini’s violin with its marvelous tones has become worm-eaten in its beautiful case and is worthless as a musical instrument.

“The Fiddle and The Bow”

We did not choose our way of making,

Not sleeping ours to choose, or waking,

Not ours the starry stroke of sound

To choose or fly, though ours the wound.

Though dead wood cry, ‘How shall I dare it?

And wood reply, ’I cannot bear it,’

Yet His alone to choose, whose fingers

Take the dead wood, and makes His singers!

Chrysostom, one of the early church fathers, said, “Let us allow Christ to speak through us. He desires this much more than we do and for that reason prepared the instruments in our lives which He would not have remain unused and idle.” We must not hide our talents, but trade with them and use them and if we do, according to this parable of Jesus in Matthew we will bring good interest to our Master. Use it or lose it!

Pastor Bob

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