Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

When they approached Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany near the Mount of Olives, He sent two of His disciples and told them, “Go into the village ahead of you. As soon as you enter it, you will find a young donkey tied there, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it here.  If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here right away.’”

So they went and found a young donkey outside in the street, tied by a door. They untied it, and some of those standing there said to them, “What are you doing, untying the donkey?”  They answered them just as Jesus had said, so they let them go.

• Mark 11:1-6

“How did it feel?  How did it feel to look out and see Jesus on the back of the donkey that lived in you barn?  Your you proud?  Were you surprised?  Were you annoyed? …
“And still other times I wonder if my little deeds today will make a difference in the long haul.
“Maybe you have those questions, too.  All of us have a donkey.  You and I each have something in our lives, which, if given back to God, could, like the donkey, move Jesus and his story further down the road.  Maybe you can sing or hug or program a computer or speak Swahili or write a check.
“Whichever, that’s your donkey.
“Whichever, your donkey belongs to him.
“It could be that God wants to mount your donkey and enter the walls of another city, another nation, another heart.  Do you let him?  Do you give it?  Or do you hesitate?
“That guy who gave Jesus the donkey is just one in a long line of folks who gave little things to a big God.  Scriptures has quite a gallery of donkey-givers.  In fact, heaven may have a shrine to honor God’s uncommon use of the common.”

• Max Lucado, The Greatest Moments

Lucado asks the questions that I have always wondered about regarding this story.  The donkey’s owner simply let them have the donkey once he knew Jesus needed the donkey.

I’m thinking that the man who gave up his donkey followed the disciples.  He did not follow to retrieve the donkey, but I am sure he was thinking, “This, I have got to see!”

I wrote about cleaning toilets for the Lord a couple of days ago.  The common things that are necessary to further God’s kingdom far outweigh the exceptional and spectacular.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.