Each of us has a platform – a place of influence, something to say, a tribe. Our platform is like a breathing organism: sometimes inhaling, sometimes exhaling; sometimes expanding, sometimes constricting.
Recently I watched a video clip of an interview with Warren Buffett. He talked about being interested in economics and finance from a very early age. He read finance books voraciously as an 11-year-old! I think it would be safe to say that Warren Buffett was born with a very large platform.
Some of us have much smaller platforms; in fact, we may feel we’re unimportant because of the size of our platform. We might even think we have no platform, no influence, no place from which to launch our particular gift to the world.
It’s easy to imagine that Jesus had a large platform – there were crowds, adoring fans, an outdoor banquet or two, people hanging onto His words. After all, He was a cosmic visitor.
Then again, maybe not.
His contemporaries didn’t have the New Testament or the Christian bookstore full of exposes on His words. He was one of many rabbis of the day. He traveled in small circles and never far.
He was very, very local.
In reality, I think His platform was quite small compared to the impact of His life.
“But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, are only a small village among all the people of Judah. Yet a ruler of Israel will come from you, one whose origins are from the distant past.” Micah 5:2
So, do we think Jesus knew, while He was on earth, the impact of His life?
Could He peer through the future and see the significance of His words, His actions?
I don’t know the answers to those questions, but I do know the answer if I insert your name and my name.
No, we do not know the impact of our lives.
No, we are not privy to our influence.
No, we seldom get to see the significance of our calling.
Maybe we don’t even know the size of our platform. Maybe we think it’s small when God has built it big. Maybe we think that’s our platform over there, and couldn’t even imagine the reality of the one we’re actually standing on.
Which brings me to the point of all this.
Don’t worry about your platform…Jesus didn’t seem to.
It didn’t seem to bother Him that He was so very local, that He didn’t go into all the world and preach the gospel, that He didn’t heal all the people in the world. He just did His job – the one His Father told Him about every night when they chatted. He did what He was told to do – when the crowds were cheering, when it was uncomfortable, when it looked revolutionary, even when it got Him into big trouble.
Would that we could do the same.
Ann Halim is editor of eWeekend, a weekly newsletter for the College View Church in Lincoln, Nebraska.
