Moving Furniture… By Dan Ryan

Wednesday, 29. August 2007 by Dan Ryan

I’m not sure what gets into me every couple years.  I think I have some kind of bug for manual labor.
If you know me at all, I haven’t had what I would consider an actual job in over a decade.  Teaching?  That’s a blast.  I’ve been antsy for this school year to get here ever since July 4th.  Yet every couple of summers, I decide to venture out into the world of real employment.  Five years ago, I remember thinking, “I’m a city boy, I’ve never detassled—I’ll try that this summer!”  And now, on the other side of that experience, never again!  Incidentally, still on my checklist is bailing hay, which they say is worse than detassling.  But a) I’ve always been one to try things out for myself, and b) I harbor this morbid curiosity as to how anything could be worse than waking down a row of corn stalks, well before dawn, only to get soaked and cut by stalk after stalk - all the while thinking that the row of corn will never end.

So when my friend Brett approached me a month ago to help move furniture with his crew, I was confident this would be a better match.  Besides, I had slated the last couple weeks before school for getting my classroom ready, so this was my chance to dust off my manual labor skills, which may have gotten rusty during my summer months of leisure.  I ended the experience with an inspiring lesson and a story I really want to share.
Honestly, I took the job primarily to reconnect with Brett after not seeing him much over the past year.  We had worked together in Campus Life a couple years ago, and I respect how Brett lives his life.  Currently, he’s a senior at the University of Illinois, majoring in elementary education - and three summers ago, he and a buddy decided to start their own roofing business.  Through some contacts they made that summer, Brett later landed a summer-ending gig moving furniture.
In the 2 weeks I worked with Brett and his crew, I must say I learned a lot. I learned that security deposits are not held sacred by many college students; that to drop a mattress from 7 floors is much more efficient than hauling it down the stairs (albeit quite alarming to passers-by); and that a spilt gallon of milk in the middle of a humid hallway solidifies over the course of a summer.
Brett’s business is called Kingdom Builders - and Brett and his crew pay themselves only a modest hourly wage, despite landing some impressive moving contracts lately. So I asked Brett: what are you doing with all the extra money?
I learned that the the #1 reason Brett and his roommate started Kingdom Builders was to fund missionaries across the world. (Oh, and I have to mention that Brett is personally in debt and will only begin to pay off his student loans after he graduates this May. Man…)

So what is the point… 

Well, ** both the Old and New Testaments are full of the imagery regarding firstfruits.  As a concept, firstfruits represent offering to God our first and our best.

“Bring the best of the firstfruits of your soil to the house of the Lord your God.”      —Exodus 23:19

Whether it was grain, wine, olive oil, sheep’s wool - it does not matter.  The earliest reaping of the harvest (the “first”), the choicest portions (the “fruits”), were to be offered to the Lord by the Israelites.  They were not to wait until their barns and storerooms were full.  They were not to wait until the kids all had clothes for winter.  And the Israelites were never to wait until they had more than enough cash to carry them through to next year’s harvest.
To offer our firstfruits require trust.  After all, the Isrealites had absolutely no idea how the rest of the harvest would turn out.  Offering their “firstfruits” demanded a deep-rooted belief that God would ultimately provide their daily bread.  At the end of the day, the Israelites hung their hat on this hope that God would indeed come through. Again, and again, and again.
I believe the first instance of offering firstfruits, occurring in Genesis 22, was also one of the most intense.  It’s the story of Abraham (who waited a century for a child to call his own) and Isaac (the firstborn son that God finally gave to Abraham).  They’re climbing a mountain because God has asked Abraham for his firstfruit - to sacrifice Isaac.  Yet while Abraham he is about to offer his son, he also makes this comment to his servants who had accompanied him and son up the mountain.

“Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then WE will come back to you.”  —Genesis 22:5

That, friends, is belief.  A belief that God will provide…  A stenght of belief that I personally do not yet have.  But I want it.
When I look at Scripture, I don’t see that much has changed in the area of offering our firstfruits to God.  The offering of our “firstfruits” remains a sign of belief - that God that will not leave us empty-handed.
Not only that, but it’s an acknowledgment that God is the one who provided us with our “fruit” in the first place.  Most of the world may be lining up to pat us on the back, as if we were the ones who earned our fruits.  And while that is often highly intoxicating for us, we need to realize what this praise can eventually eat away at our belief that God is the giver of all - and then before we know it, our understanding of God begins to shrink.

“Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops.”      —Proverbs 3:9

 
Last Thursday, just before the first bell of the new school year, I saw a group of girls offering God the firstfruits of their time.  This table was a Who’s Who of hard working students, girls who regularly study until 3 a.m.  They were huddled at a table, studying God’s Word.  In that one moment, I saw the antithesis of your standard “if-we-have-time-tonight” Bible study.
So how are you doing with your firstfruits?  In life, your time, your money, your energies can and will be pulled in many different directions.  I’m trying to be more diligent with this firstfruits thing. I guess I’m asking you to join me.   
“God, You deserve better than my leftovers.  You deserve my first, my best, my firstfruits.  I’m learning that You more than earned the rights to them when You went first.  You offered Your first, best and only Son into this world, fully aware of the fate that awaited Him.  What’s more, I need to stop brainwashing myself into thinking that I’m responsible for my firstfruits anyway.  They came from Your hand.  Starting today, grow my willingness to return a portion of them back to you.”