Saturday, September 4: 2Kings 12- Good people in the wrong job.

I realize that the Bible isn’t a management textbook but today’s reading exposes a classic management blunder… putting good people in the wrong position.

Verses 4-8 Joash said to the priests, "Collect all the money that is brought as sacred offerings to the temple of the LORD--the money collected in the census, the money received from personal vows and the money brought voluntarily to the temple. Let every priest receive the money from one of the treasurers, and let it be used to repair whatever damage is found in the temple." But by the twenty-third year of King Joash the priests still had not repaired the temple. Therefore King Joash summoned Jehoiada the priest and the other priests and asked them, "Why aren't you repairing the damage done to the temple? Take no more money from your treasurers, but hand it over for repairing the temple." The priests agreed ….

The priests are good men.  They are men chosen by God to lead the people of God in worship and to teach and instruct the people but they were not necessarily good project managers or project workers. For many years they oversaw the repair of the Temple and little or no progress was made because they were the wrong people for the job. Their other responsibilities and skill sets didn’t match completing the necessary temple repairs, so the project lingered.

King Joash had the right vision but the wrong implementers. When he finally recognized the issue (remember he began reigning at age 7) and changed the project managers and hired skilled workers, repairs began to happen…

There doesn’t seem to be one squawk from the priests either. My hunch is that they knew they were the wrong men for the job, too.

The NT reminds the church, repeatedly, that God-endowed gifts, not titles or positions or what have you, should determine a person’s function in the body.

Before you move on to the rest of your day, take a few moments and ask yourself, “How has God gifted you? Where might He be calling you to function in His body?” If you have the gifts and the calling but you are not functioning, then some other good person is likely trying to do what you have been gifted and called to do.  It, too, may be working out no better than priests repairing the temple…

Think about it.

Lord, am I doing things outside my arena of gift and calling? Am I not doing things You would have me do within my gifts and calling? Either way the body -Your Body- suffers. Point me to the things I should be doing for You, Your body and Your world. In and for Jesus I pray… Amen.